East Coast Has Earthquake - Indian Point Survives

We’ve posted before about the Supervisors desire to close Indian Point. In fact, during a Close Indian Point rally he had at taxpayer expense at Town Hall, all “presenters” stated the precarious positioning of Indian Point to the Ramapo Fault Zone line on which it sits. The northeastern corridor, as far west as Ohio, apparently felt “the big one” - yes, an earthquake. New York City buildings dwellers evacuated with haste, no doubt thinking ‘terrorist attack’, only to collectively breathe a sigh of relief upon being informed it was an earthquake.

A 5.9 on the outdated Richter Scale (now Moment Movement Magnitude calculations) for earthquakes won’t cause our bridges to collapse, roads to buckle and buildings to necessarily collapse. For a building to approach collapse, we’d need a quake of the magnitude of at least a ‘7’. But it can cause damage nonetheless. A phone call to the Westchester County’s Collapse Team referred us to the County’s Public Information Officer (PIO), who was not available to comment. A second phone call queried if their teams were mobilizing just in case they got word of something happening and we were told they were not. When we asked if there was a protocol set up to respond to an earthquake, ABG was told there is not a publicized plan that they had knowledge of, but was confident there might be something in place someone above his pay grade might be aware of. ABG asked how much he was paid and pointed out he was a volunteer, as is the entire team and he followed that it was just an expression.

A phone call to Indian Point found that all systems were unaffected by the earthquake, on line and fully operational. I’m reminded of little kids sticking their thumbs in their ears waving their fingers, saying, “Na, na, nana, naaa.” Two southern nuclear power plants have been shut down merely as a precaution, not because there had been any damage. So to Supervisor Feiner and the Close Indian Point extremists, we say stop! Let’s have a realistic discussion about Indian Point and stop creating hysteria over something that may never be an issue. While ABG is also concerned for our safety regarding Indian Point and we recognize the impact if something were to happen, we are also realistic and looking to plan long range instead of knee jerk reacting. This earthquake is probably the worst the northeast has ever experienced and there was no damage. The reactor is built to withstand an earthquake of a magnitude of 7. Let's hope we never find out if it’s needed.

Ironically, Verizon cell service went down once the earthquake happened. We’re not sure why, nor were we so concerned that we reached out to them to find out. We have cable service and were unaffected. I guess we could say, “Na, na, nana, naaa.”