Duke Energy and county officials will test sirens at a nuclear power plant in New Hill on Wednesday. However, many residents were concerned Monday morning when they heard the sirens sound at the plant.
The 85 external warning sirens around the Harris Nuclear Power Plant will be tested for five to 30 seconds between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Wednesday, July 10.
However, WRAL News received reports that the sirens went off Monday morning. County officials said there was no emergency but did not say why the sirens went off. At 8:35 a.m., a public safety alert was issued:
“Wake County is reporting an activation of the Emergency Alert System siren at the Duke Energy Harris Nuclear Generating Station, located southwest of Raleigh, North Carolina. There is NO emergency. NO protective action is required by the public.”
Duke Energy said it received reports that some emergency alert sirens inadvertently sounded in the emergency planning zone around the Harris Nuclear Generating Station Monday morning.
“The plant is operating safely,” Duke Energy told WRAL News. “There is no emergency at the plant.”
Duke Energy said it is working with local county and state emergency management to determine the cause of the siren activation.
“False alarm or not, we take this seriously,” said Jason Wheatley, a spokesman for Duke Energy. “If there is a false alarm, we want to know why it happened and what we can do to prevent it from happening in the future.”
“We will conduct a thorough investigation to determine what happened and find a way to prevent this from happening again in the future.”
The sirens will be tested again Wednesday, as scheduled. To ensure they are working properly, some sirens may need to be tested more than once. The testing is being done in cooperation with emergency officials from Chatham, Harnett, Lee and Wake counties.
Since this is a test, local radio stations will not interrupt their regular programming to broadcast Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages. In the event of an actual emergency at the plant requiring the sirens to be activated, local radio and television stations would broadcast information and instructions to the public.
For more information, visit duke-energy.com.
