Training in the Nuclear Power Plant's Joint Information Center

The largest nuclear power plant in the United States, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Wintersburg, is located about an hour's drive west of where I live in Arizona. The State of Arizona and Maricopa County run training drills every year in the event there is an accident at the station that would impact the public.

An exercise was held yesterday, and I served as Red Cross spokesperson in the Joint Information Center inside a 32,000-square-foot Emergency Operations Facility 25 miles east of the nuclear facility in Buckeye, Arizona.

A 222-seat auditorium built for media to gather is near the main entrance through the lobby area. There are also interview rooms with sound-enhancing walls designed for television crews.
Behind the north doors of the interview rooms and exit stage left in the auditorium is where all the national, state and Palo Verde executives, emergency preparedness personnel and spokespeople would gather in the JIC or the adjacent Emergency Operations Center.Both rooms are equipped with numerous television screens, computers, phones and meeting rooms to handle and monitor any situation. The EOF and JIC are separated only by a few doors and a hallway as both share a large break room/kitche

U.S. nuclear plants use four levels when measuring nuclear events: blue for an unusual event, green for an alert, yellow for a site emergency and red for a general emergency.Representatives from national agencies such as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, would head to the site, as well as state employees, such as representatives from the State Department of Emergency and Military Affairs. If there was an actual emergency, the Phoenix Chapter of the Red Cross would place staff and volunteers on standby alert awaiting further instructions to open what is called a Reception and Care Center if an evacuation was ordered.Arizona has no law requiring mandatory evacuation, but it's assumed that a nuclear accident would trigger mass public evacuation.

I served alongside colleagues from state and county agencies as well as many fine Arizona Public Service employees.