8 mo. ago • 99%

Nuclear weapon factory forced to evacuate as Texas wildfires threaten plant

www.independent.co.uk Nuclear weapon factory forced to evacuate as Texas wildfires threaten plant

Several wildfires are scorching the Texas panhandle with thousands evacuated

Several wildfires are scorching the Texas panhandle with thousands evacuated

Wildfires sweeping across Texas briefly forced the evacuation of America’s main nuclear weapons facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blaze.

Pantex Plant, the main facility that assembles and disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal, shut down its operations on Tuesday night as the Windy Deuce fire roared towards the Potter County location.

Antiwar @lemmy.ca Nuclear weapon factory forced to evacuate as Texas wildfires threaten plant

32 comments

Sounds like climate change is a national security threat. Bring on the DOD spending!

84
- Welp, we've bombed the fires. it didn't really put them out but it completely cleared all land of any vegetation. So...win, I guess?
  
  29
  
  You joke, but using air dropped bombs to put out fires is a tactic that's been used for quite a while. probably not the best thing to do next to a site with nuclear materials on-hand, but it's absolutely been done before.
  
  12
Well that's fucking alarming. For all of the money the DoD vacuums up, they can't handle a wildfire near a nuclear weapons factory where they should absolutely expect a wildfire? What's next, a California nuke factory that wasn't built to withstand earthquakes?

39
- Someone only read the headline...
  
  "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 on Tuesday night.
  
  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.”
  
  Pantex re-opened and resumed operations as normal on Wednesday morning.
  
  Also all of this is run by the Department of Energy, not Defense
  
  44
  
  Yeah, for some god forsaken reason, nuclear bombs fall under the jurisdiction of the government’s power plant branch, rather than the military one.
  
  4
THE FREAKIN FIRE HAS A NUKE

21
- Convince Texas that the fire has oil so they invade the fire.
  
  13
  
  Or we can convince then the fire is trans and they might just go fucking put it out.
  
  12
Still winter. Can't wait for summer!

19
QUICK! EVERYONE!!! GO ON VACATION TO CANCUN!!!

17
Oh this is fine.

10
Is it scorching season already?

8
Wait what. We still are producing nuclear weapons? I thought we had agreed not to do that.

3
- Read the article. It tells you they havent produced one since 1991
  
  19
  
  Then what the fuck are they doing in there?
  
  3
  
  In the literal description of the post it says “assembles”.
  
  1
Texas is a joke.

2
Not one Windy Deuce joke? Really Lemmy y'all disappointed me this time.

2
So that's where they make them!

2

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