Where’s the nearest nuclear power plant from your place? Do you know when you have to evacuate your home? Do You Live Within 50 Miles of a Nuclear Power Plant?
This interactive map may save your life! In the extremely unlikely event of a meltdown, this great disaster response map from ESRI will tell you if you have to evacuate your home or not. This other map features the US nuclear plants and the US fault lines.
What is the minimal distance for evacuation after meltdown?
If a meltdown occurs, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends that anyone living within 10 miles of a plant to tune in to their local radio or television Emergency Alert System and heed the instructions from state or local officials. Anyone within 50 miles should protect local food and water supplies. After the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommends Americans living within 50 miles of the plant to evacuate.
ESRI US disaster response map
In the new nuclear proximity interactive map by Esri (above) you can scroll around to see the 65 active nuclear plants scattered across the U.S. surrounded by 10-mile (red) and 50-mile (yellow) radiuses, or plug in your address to get the exact distance you are from the nearest few plants. In parallel, this map shows locations of historic earthquakes and fault lines. Read the rest of the article before trying it!
This video presents when US faced nuclear calamity: The 1979 Three Mile Island Nuclear Disaster:
Strange facts
- Most of the nuclear plants are located near large urban areas.
- 14 of the US biggest 20 metro areas by population, lie within 50 miles of a nuclear plant.
- A third of US citizens live within one of the 50-mile radiuses.
So there’s a good chance you live relatively close to a nuclear plant.