San Onofre to Test Sirens as Planned

Since last month’s terrorist attacks, officials at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and surrounding cities had serious second thoughts about holding the plant’s annual siren tests, worried that they might panic an already jittery public.

Yet because of concerns about another possible terrorist strike in the United States, authorities concluded that there has never been a more crucial time to make sure the warning system is in top working condition.

So the drill for San Onofre will go on Wednesday as planned, with extra steps being taken this year to inform residents within the 10-mile evacuation zone that the high-pitched, steady wails piercing the skies are just a sound check, not a gut check.

“Given the anxiety level of the American public, we did think long and hard about postponing it,” plant spokesman Ray Golden said. “When we polled all the entities . . . there was a unanimous decision to go forward. The logic on that was that we felt--especially during these times--there needed to be a demonstration of the sirens’ operability.”

Sirens at all U.S. nuclear power plants must be tested at least once a year under standards tightened by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979. Plants and nearby cities also are required to have full-scale evacuation plans in place and to rehearse and reevaluate them every two years with mock disaster drills.

San Onofre’s 49 sirens are scattered throughout San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point, San Clemente, unincorporated south Orange County and around the Camp Pendleton Marine Base. The heaviest concentrations of sirens are in the most-populated areas. Blasting at 120 decibels, a noise level comparable to a rock concert, they are loud enough to reach an estimated 170,000 residents within a 10-mile radius of the plant.

“They are not what you would typically think of as air-raid sirens. It’s more of a monotone, solid sound. Once they are turned on you can hear a single, steady tone,” said Mark Johnson, emergency services coordinator for Dana Point.

Johnson and many other locals said they are used to the drills. But not everyone agrees the timing makes sense.

New San Clemente resident Robert Abels, 88, worries that the tests will give terrorists perfect cover because everyone’s guard will be down.

“God forbid [terrorists] decide they’re going to hit [San Onofre] and they hit it,” said Abels, who moved in February into the new Talega development east of Interstate 5 in the hills of San Clemente and has never heard the sirens.

There has never been an emergency that triggered an evacuation at or around San Onofre. But if, despite all precautions, there was an uncontrolled release of radiation, the sirens signal residents to turn on their televisions or radios to find out what to do next.

If the contamination were too weak to pose a major health hazard or moving so fast that it would overtake people on evacuation routes, residents would be advised to take “shelter in place,” remaining inside with windows and doors closed and ventilation systems turned off.

Because of the dense population, experts have estimated an evacuation could take up to 7 1/2 hours. But in the event of a slow-moving or long-duration release, people would be directed to escape routes, and if necessary, to shelters and medical centers. The disabled and others with special needs would receive special notification and transportation in the event of an emergency.

Though cities take their own steps to inform residents of the siren tests, Southern California Edison, which owns and operates San Onofre, has the primary responsibility for notifying the public about the drills and what to do in case of a threat.

In the last few weeks, 58,000 pieces of mail were delivered to businesses, residences, schools, day-care facilities and nursing homes in the evacuation zone. Announcements in English and Spanish explain that the sirens will sound for two to five minutes between 10 a.m. and noon Wednesday and urge the public not to call 911. The sirens will be tested more than once during the two-hour period.

Notices have also been running in local newspapers.

To further assuage fears, San Onofre officials sent letters to elected city leaders and met with representatives from Camp Pendleton and the Capistrano Unified School District. They also asked the California Department of Transportation to post notifications on stretches of the San Diego Freeway north and south of the plant.

“It’s business as usual,” said Capistrano Unified spokeswoman Kim Coyne, explaining that 17,000 of its 46,000 students are in the evacuation zone and all of them have been informed.

“Everyone’s aware it’s going on and there’s not going to be an interruption of learning.”

But despite the aggressive public education campaign, there are always some who slip through the cracks. Officials in some cities are bracing for a higher-than-usual volume of calls from locals who didn’t get the message.

In San Juan Capistrano, extra staff will be on hand at City Hall.

“We’re setting up more people to answer phones than we would in the normal year, just in case,” said Brian Perry, a senior civil engineer who oversees the city’s preparedness plans.