Patricia A. Miller
Ocean View
Remain calm. Do not rush.That’s one of the many laughable tidbits the state offers to Ocean County residents in its “Com-munity Emergency Planning Informa-tion” booklet on what to do if the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township blows.
Your first hint of a “radiological emergency” at the oldest nuclear plant in the United States will come in the form of a siren. It will blare for a steady three minutes, just in case you didn’t get the message during the first minute.
The next step calls for residents to turn on their radios and listen to official information from several Emergency Alert System (EAS) stations.
Then, it’s time to pack up and head for your “reception center” – aka public shelter – designation, which will depend on which one of the 20 Emergency Response Planning Areas (ERPA) you live in. Get used to the acronyms. The evacuation plan is stuffed with them.
Oops. Before you leave, don’t forget to gulp down your potassium iodide pill, thoughtfully provided free by the state of New Jersey.
It will keep your thyroid gland from absorbing any radioactive iodine that could turn into thyroid cancer. The bad news is, the rest of your body parts are up for grabs.
“Radiation is all around us, in the air, in the soil, in the wood and bricks in our homes, even in our bodies,” the booklet explains in fourth-gradese. “High doses of radiation over short periods of time, however, could result in acute health effects.”
Getting to your designated “reception center” will undoubtedly not be a smooth ride. My evacuation route (Route 10d) tells me to head up Route 9 north.
The state’s evacuation plans relies heavily on a road constructed to handle 1950’s traffic. Two-lane Route 9 is one of several primary routes to be used in a radiological emergency at the plant. It’s an amusing but frightening assumption for anyone, let alone emergency management officials, to think that would work.
Anyone who lives in central or southern Ocean County knows that Route 9, either northbound or southbound, is generally crammed with cars on any given day.
Throw in a summer weekend, a fender bender or even some minor road work and it’s a parking lot. There is nothing in the booklet that tells motorists what to do in those scenarios.
Your home for at least the next three days, unless you are lucky enough to have friends and relatives outside the 10-mile emergency planning zone (EPZ), will be at one of six locations. That’s providing you are able to make it through the traffic at a standstill to your “reception center.”
The shelters include: Pinelands Regional High School in Tuckerton, Brick Township High School in Brick, Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Jackson, the Whiting Fire Company in Manchester Township, Lakewood Middle School in Lakewood and Manchester High School in Manchester Township.
Worried about the kids? Well, supposedly each school district is required to send a letter home to parents at the beginning of the school year describing the school’s emergency plan. Your children will be bused to the public shelter listed in the letter.
“The children will be cared for at the shelter until parents arrive,” the booklet states.
There is no mention of the total chaos and panic that would result from parents trying desperately to get to their children, if they could even get near the shelter.
There is no mention of the fact that the current evacuation plan is a fantasy.
There is only one evacuation plan that will work – and that is to close Oyster Creek.
Patricia Miller is a managing editor with Greater Media Newspapers.