What I heard this morning is that a number of the plants are in a refueling cycle and not in operation. No fuel in the reactor and at least some of the backup diesel generators undergoing overhaul. The current NRC regulations do not require that the spent fuel ponds use the generators for cooling the spent fuel rods, instead relying on the grid. So, it the grid goes down, which it likely will, then its possible that the spent fuel rods can overheat due to lack of circulating cooling water. That's probably the major issue here.
There was a situation last year from Irene. There was so much water that the propane tanks floated away down a river toward a hydroelectric dam near one of the reactors (I think it was in Connecticut). The road to the reactor was closed fearing an explosions from the tanks. I don't think that disaster planning for the reactor design included such a scenario.
This was my post, I forgot to log in.
Please note -- I didn't claim it was bullshit. Someone else did!
lets just say that there is some contention about the explosiveness of zirconium. An older article (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/148/3677/1594.abstract) suggests that it can be explosive (what about flaring, does that count)? Given that there are high concentrations of Hydrogen, the point may be moot!
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