Out-of-control wildfires scorch Texas Panhandle, prompt shutdown of nuclear weapons facility
Out-of-control wildfires scorch Texas Panhandle, prompt shutdown of nuclear weapons facility
Out-of-control Texas wildfires have shut down a nuclear weapons facility and prompted evacuation orders in small towns across the state’s rural Panhandle.
A series of wildfires swept across the Texas Panhandle early Wednesday, prompting evacuations, cutting off power to thousands, and forcing the shutdown of a nuclear weapons facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes.
An unknown number of homes and other structures in Hutchinson County were damaged or destroyed, local emergency officials said. The main facility that assembles and disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal shut down its operations Tuesday night.
“We have evacuated our personnel, non-essential personnel from the site, just in an abundance of caution,” Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office at Pantex, said during a news conference. “But we do have a well-equipped fire department that has trained for these scenarios, that is on-site and watching and ready should any kind of real emergency arise on the plant site.”
Oh awesome, bushfire in the North American winter, good to know that the southern and northern hemisphere can link up on disasters
9Have they tried raking the forests?
4Why do we have a nuclear weapons facility? Didn't we sign an international treaty not to make more nukes?
-2If it's disassembly and assembly, we can probably get away with not breaking the treaty by not making more nuclear material but rather we further remove the material from old missiles, possibly refine it again(I assume that some decay would render some of it inert) and put in back in new or refurbished weapons.
4Literally the second paragraph
The main facility that disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal
4