Officials at the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station declared an Unusual Event in Unit 1 at 7:20 a.m. Wednesday, July 24, due to a loss of offsite power that caused the Unit 1 reactor to trip offline.
A fire was reported in the switchyard and crews took immediate action, calling on local county emergency response organizations and nearby industry partners for firefighting assistance.
The fire has been extinguished and no injuries have been reported.
Unit 1 is offline, being closely monitored by licensed plant operators.
Due to conditions in the switchyard, power in Unit 2 was reduced to approximately 90 percent power.
Both units are in a safe condition and there is no danger to the public.
An Unusual Event is the lowest of four nuclear emergency classifications.
This classification describes a condition or event that is outside of normal plant operations but poses no threat to public safety.
STP officials are coordinating with federal, state and local officials and will be conducting an investigation to determine the cause of the fire.
In a related announcement, Emergency Operations Center Public Information Officer Mitch Thames said the Emergency Management Team received notification that STP declared the unusual event on July 24.
Matagorda County Judge Bobby Seiferman placed the Emergency Operations Center on level 3 and all team members were notified and were given a briefing.
The processes and procedures were reviewed for the emergency plan.
“With constant communications between the plant and county officials, we monitored the response of our local emergency response organizations and the nearby industry partners for firefighting assistance,” Thames said.
