By LISA DAVIS
Staff Writer
ASHTABULA - Ashtabula County
should be more worried about chemical spills than a disaster at the Perry
Nuclear Power Plant, county Emergency Management Agency director Ed Somppi said
at City Council's safety forces committee Thursday.
"If an unusual event was
to take place at the power plant, the plant has 15 minutes to notify Ashtabula,
Lake and Geauga counties emergency management agencies," Somppi said.
The
directors from each county assess the situation and determine the appropriate
actions, he said.
"If it's a hot humid day and no wind, only the area around
the plant is affected," Somppi said. "If there is a wind, then the direction
it's traveling determines what communities are involved."
The directors must
notify the community if there is a problem, Somppi said. If an evacuation is
necessary, the EMA has an agreement with school districts in the area to act as
care centers.
Erie and other bordering Pennsylvania counties also are
involved in the care center plan, he said. Several times a year, EMA directors
from northeast Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania meet to fine-tune operations,
Somppi said.
As for an airplane hitting the Perry plant, Somppi said the
reactor vessel has five levels of containment or barriers made of cement, steel
and other materials. These would have to be penetrated first before the reactor
could be breached
"I'm more worried about a chemical spill from a tanker
truck or a chemical plant, than the power plant," Somppi said.
In 1974,
after the Three Mile Island disaster, the other 103 nuclear power plants in the
U.S. were required to develop disaster plans, which are heavily regulated by the
federal government, he said.