Resolution of Generic Safety Issues: Issue 178: Effect of Hurricane Andrew on Turkey Point (Rev. 2) ( NUREG-0933, Main Report with Supplements 1–35 )
DESCRIPTION
On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida and caused extensive onsite and offsite damage at Turkey Point. Following this hurricane which was classified Category 4, an NRC/industry team was organized to: (1) review the damage caused to the nuclear units; (2) review the licensee actions to prepare for, and recover from, the storm; and (3) compile lessons that might benefit other nuclear reactor facilities. Results of the team review were documented in NUREG-14741610 which was distributed to all power reactor licensees by INPO on June 10, 1993.
As a result of the EDO request for staff review of the NRC/industry report to determine the actions necessary for resolving the identified concerns, an action plan1611 was established by NRR. Among the items in the plan were two that addressed whether there was the need to develop generic guidance for:
(1) licensees, to ensure that their offsite communication circuits can reliably survive or recover from the impact of a severe natural event such as a hurricane. (These circuits are required to provide reliable notification to offsite authorities of emergency conditions at the affected licensee's power reactor facility.)
(2) inspectors, to review licensees' preparation for, and response to, natural disasters, including industry pre-planned support.
This issue was identified in an NRR memorandum1601 to RES in February 1996 and addressed the staff's efforts to increase its knowledge and understanding of hurricanes in order to increase its confidence in assessing levels of safety. Therefore, it was considered a Licensing Issue.1731
CONCLUSION
For Item 1, TI 2515/131, "Licensee Offsite Communication Capabilities," was issued1136 in January 1996 to provide inspectors with guidance for collecting information on offsite notification circuits and, between February 1 and June 30, 1996, this TI was used at 17 plants. Data collected from these inspections and previous inspections were evaluated to determine if guidance to licensees in the form of generic communication was necessary to provide either survivability or rapid recoverability of the circuits from a severe natural event.1770 For Item 2, the staff concluded that, from an emergency preparedness standpoint, sufficient guidance existed for reviewing licensee preparations in response to a hurricane or other external events.
The staff issued IN 93-53,1612 Supplement 1, which expanded the scope of lessons learned to other external events and discussed existing regulatory guidance for various external events. The action to provide guidance for inspectors to address any vulnerabilities that may develop from the review of IPEEEs (GL 88-20, Supplement 4)1222 was incorporated into Activity 1.3 (b) of the Probabilistic Risk Assessment Implementation Plan. Thus, this issue was resolved.
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