Nuclear weapon factory forced to evacuate as Texas wildfires threaten plant

Several wildfires are scorching the Texas panhandle with thousands evacuated

Wildfires sweeping across Texas briefly forced the evacuation of America’s main nuclear weapons facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blaze.

Pantex Plant, the main facility that assembles and disassembles America’s nuclear arsenal, shut down its operations on Tuesday night as the Windy Deuce fire roared towards the Potter County location.

EdibleFriend,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

THE FREAKIN FIRE HAS A NUKE

aeronmelon,

Convince Texas that the fire has oil so they invade the fire.

EdibleFriend,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

Or we can convince then the fire is trans and they might just go fucking put it out.

TragicNotCute,
@TragicNotCute@lemmy.world avatar

We’ve banned fires now. Problem solved.

werefreeatlast,

Oh this is fine.

Pat_Riot,
@Pat_Riot@lemmy.today avatar

Not one Windy Deuce joke? Really Lemmy y’all disappointed me this time.

jobby,

QUICK! EVERYONE!!! GO ON VACATION TO CANCUN!!!

BruceTwarzen,

Is it scorching season already?

tsonfeir,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

Texas is a joke.

RagingRobot,

So that’s where they make them!

tyler,

Wait what. We still are producing nuclear weapons? I thought we had agreed not to do that.

Broken_Monitor,

Read the article. It tells you they havent produced one since 1991

SpaceNoodle,

Then what the fuck are they doing in there?

protist,

They do maintenance on existing weapons, which require regular maintenance

nymwit,

Maintenance and disassembly are the other things listed. Also apparently ongoing remediation of contaminated perched groundwater, possibly soil work.

Broken_Monitor,

Well, there’s the other part where they dismantle them.

CaptainSpaceman,

Ans then reassemble?

SpaceNoodle,

For thirty-three years?

mosiacmango, (edited )

What, you think taking apart nuclear missiles is something you do fast?

We have like 3000 of them that are still active as well that this company maintaines too.

Sir_Kevin,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Government work (contracted or otherwise) is sloooooow

MotoAsh, (edited )

Yes? The US wanted to downsize after the cold war to save on maintenance. Not give up nukes entirely. Why the HELL would the US give up nukes entirely? At what point in US history have we ever given up a game changer like nuclear deterrance (as dumb as it is, war itself is dumb)?

tyler,

In the literal description of the post it says “assembles”.

Pistcow,

Still winter. Can’t wait for summer!

Nurse_Robot,

Well that’s fucking alarming. For all of the money the DoD vacuums up, they can’t handle a wildfire near a nuclear weapons factory where they should absolutely expect a wildfire? What’s next, a California nuke factory that wasn’t built to withstand earthquakes?

protist, (edited )

Someone only read the headline…

"We have evacuated our personnel, non-essential personnel from the site, just in an abundance of caution,” Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office at Pantex, said during a news conference on Tuesday night.

But we do have a well-equipped fire department that has trained for these scenarios, that is on-site and watching and ready should any kind of real emergency arise on the plant site.”

Pantex re-opened and resumed operations as normal on Wednesday morning.

Also all of this is run by the Department of Energy, not Defense

DarkMessiah,

Yeah, for some god forsaken reason, nuclear bombs fall under the jurisdiction of the government’s power plant branch, rather than the military one.

starman2112, (edited )
@starman2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

Honestly preferable

DarkMessiah,

I mean, true. It’s just a little weird that a bunch of people whose job it is to keep things from exploding also have the job of making things that explode.

protist,

The reason is because DOE contains all of the nuclear experts, since they also regulate nuclear power production

gibmiser,

Sounds like climate change is a national security threat. Bring on the DOD spending!

Neato,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

Welp, we’ve bombed the fires. it didn’t really put them out but it completely cleared all land of any vegetation. So…win, I guess?

Badabinski,

You joke, but using air dropped bombs to put out fires is a tactic that's been used for quite a while. probably not the best thing to do next to a site with nuclear materials on-hand, but it's absolutely been done before.

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