Hi: Been lurking here for awhile just to get information. The local papers are playing dumb. Del. has Salem, Calvert Cliffs, Limerick and Three Mile Island on or near its borders. All of the plants have had problems but have not made the local news.??? Normally, whenever Salem has a problem, it makes headline news in the Wilm. News Journal. We lost 3 chemical plants(2 destroyed) and one refinery(Del. City/off line) in the last two weeks. As I understand, 3, poss. all 4 incidents were due to flow valves staying open. I personally have had banking issues. I have automatic electronic transfer from checking to pay for the mortgage. Been this way for 17 years with no problems. Rec. a notice that there was no payment for 12/99+1/00. My checking statement showed transactions with codes. Contacted the bank, they said that mort. and chekcing are diff. computers. I asked her how were her compilers. Huh!. I was told to ignore problem. Bet I have a black mark on my credit now.

Diff. note, been shopping at Acme for 20 yrs. and noticed something strange 12/31/99. They gutted out two aisle and brought in thousands of boxes of bottled water. This was New Years night about 4 hours to closing time. None of the boxes had any markings of any kind on the outside. I opened a couple to check. Why that late in the game? Inventory cost plus sales loss must have been high. I suspect they were "told" to stock up on water. This is why I started to come to this site for info. There are some empty shelves in the store, maybe 5%.

Captain Tripps is running rampant here. Local CDC has suggested staying out of public places.

Residential voltage has been dirty, tonight was at 123-126 and out of cycle (was trying to do some electronics test tonight).

Chrysler(Newark) and GM(Boxwood) employees are still on break. Re-tooling and surplus. The ones I talked to said this was true, but one fellow said they also had problems with the paint shop robots. When I asked more, it actually sounded like sensors monitoring the exhaust vents were telling the robots to stop spraying.

The train traffic has been down to 0-1/wk. Usual is 10-20/wk. This may reflect manuf. down and reduced coal hauling though, but this seems excessive.

-- Surrounded (Hiding@thefirststate.com), January 13, 2000

Answers

Surrounded, thanksmfor that interesting report, and welcome to TB2K! Be sure to check the archives when you have time ... :-)

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), January 13, 2000.

Wow, Surrounded! you brought in more problems in your post than we normally get in 10 or 11. Keep us posted. PS: How far are you from Cecil County, Maryland?

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 13, 2000.

Surrounded, thanks for your post, and please keep us updated on any changes.

-Hokie

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 13, 2000.

Thanks surrounded, excellent post of conditions that we otherwise would never hear about because one 6 year old Cuban boy is far more important than Y2K ever was.

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), January 13, 2000.

I'm in New Castle County, DE, which borders Cecil County, MD. The Calvert Cliff reactor feeds Cecil County and Baltimore. 20 miles asthecrowflies to Cecil.

-- Surrounded (Hiding@thefirststate.com), January 13, 2000.

Do NOT get Cynical started again....

-- Ric (ice163@worldnet.att.net), January 13, 2000.

The Cuban boy, Elian, is newsworthy because he is an alien, and in fact is name is an anagram of ALIEN. Forum regulars, who are all a bit crackers, should be jumping all over the PROGRESS represented by open media coverage of the presence of this diminutive alien among us, and the controversy his pressence has thrust into the public eye. AT LAST, at last, i t's olut in the open. Do we send the small alien home, or keep him here to learn our ways.......

>"<

Sorry. Slow night.

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.tree), January 13, 2000.

Squirrel, I vote to send the boy home, to his Father and immediate family.

-- Who says our ways (are@therightways.com), January 13, 2000.

So, are you saying this is just another alien abduction story? (I couldn't resist)

I did hear Katie, the darling of the airways, in an interview with "the family's attorney" say the boy spent only every other weekend with his Mother and the other days with the Father and four grandparents. I don't know what to think - but I DO think Castro is afraid to let the Dad come to America. Think he'd stay?

-- Ric (ice163@worldnet.att.net), January 13, 2000.

Calvert Cliffs has not had ANY problems recently. Both units 100% power the entire year and not a single shutdown or event report whatsoever.

Of course, there was a(now apparently hoaxed or spurious) third-hand hearsay report here a while ago that people completely forgot about.

I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, near Delaware, and haven't noticed a single thing out of the ordinary round these parts, in terms of stores, trains, anything.

There are so many reactor shutdowns, as I've noted before, it's unlikely for all of them to make even the local news.

TMI is a special case in terms of media coverage, but the "event" there was trivial....no loss of power, etc.

If you are going to start worrying about EVENTS reported in the NRC Event report, not just shutdowns or scrams, you'll REALLY drive yourself insane...I would guess that, depending on the reactor, a single unit could easily rack up 20-40 events/year.

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 13, 2000.

Forgot to note that, additionally, my power has been steady and continuous here for many months...

(Caroline County Maryland.)

Of course, nobody particularly wants to hear that :-)

-- John H Krempasky (johnk@dmv.com), January 13, 2000.

Ok guys, recall that a few weeks ago (1/3/00), a poster to this site stated that Calvert Cliffs had contacted his dad, saying they had serious Y2k problems and needed assistance - probably a 3-month job. The poster's father was a contractor who works on nuclear power plants. Before the post ended, the PR rep from Calvert Cliffs replied saying there were no problems at Calvert Cliffs. Ha! We've been watching the NRC plant status report - no sign of a problem at Calvert Cliffs, yet.........

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), January 14, 2000.

Page that poster .....

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.tree), January 14, 2000.

"We lost three chemical plants (2 destroyed) and one refinery...".

Two chemical plants "destroyed" and not one blip in the media. Heck I follow the regional news (Philly Inquirer & KWY radio) and NOTHING was said.

What kind if similar situations are going on along NJ's "Chemical Coast", Houston's Ship Channel, Louisianna's Lower Mississippi River and West Virginia's Chemical Valley, and are the local or national media outlets really that blind to any trends on this subject?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 14, 2000.