HURRICANE ANDREW and the Turkey Point Nuclear Facility 13 Years Later!
HURRICANE ANDREW and the Turkey Point Nuclear Facility 13 Years Later!Thirteen years later, those of us in Florida live through hurricane season watching the weather reports and heaving sighs of relief when tropical storms head out to the ocean. Hurricane Andrew was the single most drastic and damaging event to our state and even our nation. Everything about the storm was not normal! Survivors say the lightning was green, that the eye wall of the storm consisted of massive amounts of tornadoes, that the storm, instead of dissipating once it hit land, increased in strength and that it buffeted the shoreline for over 6 hours. It literally devasted entire neighborhoods and cleared every leaf from every tree.
I would rather believe the people that were there than any official government story. It would have been to the government's benefit to lie or stretch the truth on this one, as it would save the government and the state from losing out on real estate and tourist driven revenue. Scant days after the storm, a full page ad worth thousands of dollars appeared in the south Florida newspapers encouraging people to come to Florida for vacations. Be sure to visit Disneyland! Don't forget your stacks of money!
As to the condition of the Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, this was the information from the official government site:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1993/in93053s1.html
It is not clear whether adequate consideration has been given to the failure
(or malfunction) of nonsafety-related structures and equipment in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor which could jeopardize the proper functioning of safety-related structures, systems and components. As noted in IN 93-53 and in NRC NUREG-1474, at Turkey Point, Hurricane Andrew caused damage to a number of nonsafety structures and equipment:
. all (six) steel-framed turbine canopies collapsed,
. one of the two chimneys (associated with the two fossil units at the
site) was severely damaged,
. the base anchors for the vent stack on the Unit 4 containment were
lifted 10 mm [3/8 inch],
. ductwork from the radioactive waste building to the vent stack failed
due to hurricane generated missiles,
. the nonsafety high-water tank collapsed, and fell on various
fire-protection pumps and pipes, rendering one of the fire protection
systems inoperable.
In spite of the severe damage to a number of nonsafety items at Turkey Point, the safety-related structures, systems and components of the two nuclear reactors withstood the storm without damage and the reactors did not pose a radiological hazard to nearby communities. A systematic evaluation of the available logs and data by the licensee indicated that there were no unexpected radiation levels onsite or offsite..
With that much damage to the structure, I find the official story impossible to believe! Keep in mind that the structure was built to withstand 200mph winds and NOAA after 10 years quietly "corrected" the grade of Andrew to a 5 AFTER learning of foreign news reports and admitted that some of the gusts were over 314mph during the storm! So they are not telling the truth! I bet that if we looked into the amount of cancer victims in the Homestead area from that time period and after, that instance would be really high! The writer of the Where Heavens Meet story is very ill now.
http://www.whereheavensmeet.com/andrew/articles/nexus.html
Of course, the rather 'insignificant' incident resulting from Andrew's winds bombarding Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, wasn't aired by the news media either nationally or abroad:
From the MIAMI HERALD/Tom Dubouq, September 5, 1992: "Demolition crews toppled a 400 foot smokestack at Turkey Point [nuclear] power plant [owned by Florida Power and Light Company] Friday, September 4, 1992. The stack, which had a 200 foot gaping crack, was dropped without a hitch, a Florida Power and Light spokesperson said. The other smokestack at the plant will be salvaged. Turkey Point will be shut down for several months while repairs are made. The cost will exceed 90 million [dollars] according to an initial damage report… When Turkey Point was built in the 1960's, its main structures were designed to withstand 235 mph winds. Hurricane Andrew was clocked at 164 mph at the plant. Florida Power and Light officials don't know why the smokestack didn't hold up."
**The damage from the storm**
# Obliterated 102 miles of power lines & 300 towers
# 25,000 gallons of oil spilled into Biscayne Bay
# 7 million fish killed due to depleted oxygen in waterways
# 8% of all Florida agriculture destroyed
# 300 square miles of total devestation
# Directly after Andrew 1.3million without electricity
# 2,200 traffic lights destroyed
# 90%of small businesses destroyed
# 1 Billion dollars damage in Louisiana
# 25 Billion dollars damage in Florida
# In Homestead 80% of homes destroyed
# 10,000 acres of nurseries ruined
# 100,000 homes damaged
# 63,000 homes badly damaged
The People affected
# In Homestead 7,500 families left homeless out of 26,000
# After the storm phone systems overwhelmed with 80,000 calls per minute
# calls to police before Andrew 1,500 per day & after andrew 6,000 per day
# 14% of Dade County residents temporarily unemployed
# 300,000 homeless right after the storm
# 41 killed as a direct result of the storm
# 140,000 unemployed in Florida
# 1 week after andrew 300,000 still without power
***All reports have conflicting numbers on the amount of the dead. Some say +10,000 and any number below that. There were many thousands of undocumented workers and illegals in the area. Now there are condos built over the trailer parks and the land value has gone sky high, part of the real estate BOOM taking place everywhere in South Florida. How convenient.
This is from one of the survivor's, KT Frankovich's site:
"One-hundred-million dollars worth of damage resulted from the nuclear power plant's smokestack having been cracked wide open. The nuclear plant itself, situated approximately 15 miles north-east of where I lived. How well I recall the leaflets circulated several months before Andrew struck, advising all residents within a "thirty-five mile radius" of Turkey Point Nuclear Plant, to be aware of the potential hazards involved if an event such as a natural disaster or unexpected catastrophe happened. Such a grim reminder of the Chernobyl tragedy. Could it be more than a coincidence that within 24 hours of Hurricane Andrew ending, all twelve survivors in my little group, including our animals, broke out in big raw oozing sores, which itched and burned at the same time? We suffered horrible headaches, making us so nauseous we had the dry heaves. And, our stomachs cramped badly from sudden onsets of diarrhea. These symptoms lasted well over three months and, within a relatively short period of time, each one of our surviving animals died from cancer."
Keep in mind that FEMA did not reach most of these people in the roped off areas and many of them died after the storm. These neighborhoods were in the shadow of Turkey Point. No emergency personnel wanted to go into those areas. Areas were roped off by the US military and the areas the most hardest hit were under martial law. In many cases, those who needed the most aid could not get to it, were ignored, left homeless and some were even arrested for stealing food. The lesson learned by these survivors: do not believe that FEMA and the RED CROSS will always come to your aid.
The class and speed of Hurricane Andrew was not admitted by the US government until AFTER KT Frankovich had done a speaking gig in Turkey at some earthquake sites and visited the survivors. As soon as she described her story to the foreign media, and the US got wind of it (pun was intended), then the class of the Hurricane was changed for the recordbooks and the wind gust speed was noted at over 300 mph. In other words, they lied the first time! They had the data, but did not want to publish it. They only published it because people that were SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD, were not dead and kept on talking to anyone who would listen. So they were forced to amend their preliminary official statements. It took them almost 10 years to do that!
No one wants a repeat of this storm. South Florida residents continue to live on the edge of fear.
Official statement noting the classification/category change of Hurricane Andrew:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/andrew.html
See the gallery of pics here:
http://www.whereheavensmeet.com/andrew/gallery/frameset.html
(The 8th pic in this gallery was a famous shot in the press, of an old man with his pants balled up under his arm, standing in stagnant water, an expression of shock and disbelief on his face!)
#58 Turkey Point nuclear plant suffered $100 million in damage and sections of it had to be demolished. Click on the 58th picture--this is an image of one of the towers at Turkey Point being intentionally pulled down because of the sustained damages. It was soon rebuilt.
Background items:
Good summary and other assorted news blurbs:
http://www.cpr4democracy.com/blog/2004/08/survivor-says-10000-people-died-in.html
http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/9909/14/hurricane.utilities/
posted by Zalala @ 7/27/2005 10:04:00 AM
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