SOUTH COUNTY : ‘Meltdown’ Emergency Plans Tested

Southern California Edison staged a fake meltdown at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station for federal inspectors Thursday to test emergency preparedness for disaster containment and public safety.

Officials and personnel from Dana Point, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano and San Diego County, as well as the U.S. Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton and state and federal agencies, gathered at the Irvine office of Edison to establish a remote headquarters for an emergency news office.

Fourteen other Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric offices in the vicinity of the reactor also participated.

“It is very important to have emergency procedures in place,” said Dave Barron, a nuclear information specialist for Edison. “You never know when a disaster can occur . . . like (the fire) they had in Oakland.”

A full-scale simulation is required every two years at the nuclear facility. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sent inspectors to the site to evaluate the decision-making process and communication of pertinent information to the public.

“At stake is their credibility,” said Richard Echavarria, an FEMA inspector. “They have to show that the public can trust them to be responsible and will obey their instructions in a disaster.”

At the Irvine office, a lunch room was converted into a communications center. Phones rang incessantly from city and Edison officials providing fake information on evacuated schools and gridlocked traffic. Officials at the media center held mock press conferences, produced an endless stream of information bulletins and took questions from Edison employees posing as journalists.

Caroline Horn, a public information officer for the city of San Clemente, said the police chief and city manager were responsible for making snap decisions during the bogus scenario, and police officers and firefighters issued radiation monitors and carried out emergency procedures as part of the drill.

“We test everything to the extreme, so we can be a little bit more prepared,” Horn said.