Flood wall fails at Fort Calhoun

By Sam Womack
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Water surrounded several buildings at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station on Sunday after a water-filled floodwall collapsed.

The plant, about 19 miles north of Omaha, remains safe, Omaha Public Power District officials said Sunday afternoon.

Sunday’s event offers even more evidence that the relentlessly rising Missouri River is testing the flood worthiness of an American nuclear power plant like never before. The now-idle plant has become an island. And unlike other plants in the past, Fort Calhoun faces months of flooding.

Floodwater surrounded the nuclear plant’s main electrical transformers Sunday after the Aqua Dam, a water-filled tubular levee, collapsed, and power was transferred to emergency diesel generators.

OPPD officials said the transfer was precautionary because of water leaking around the concrete berm surrounding the main transformers.

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