The Surry nuclear plant in Virginia declared an unusual event Saturday after a tornado caused it to lose outside power.
The storm came at the end of a three day period when at least 35 tornados were reported between Oklahoma and North Carolina, killing more than 40 people. When the storm reached southern Virginia, it knocked out power lines that provide electricity to the Surry plant. The Williamsburg Yorktown Daily newspaper quoted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as saying that the plant’s two reactors scrammed, and that four of its backup diesel generators and other safety systems functioned as designed.
Dominion, which owns the plant, notified the NRC of the outage at 7 p.m., Saturday. The company has since brought external power back online. Surry uses two 799 megawatt pressurized water reactors licensed in the early 1970s near Newport News, Va.