See the blog title? Before you accuse me of being an alarmist, the wording is a verbatim quote sent to me by Hugh Kaufman, (senior policy analyst with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response), who also linked me to the following article from Business Insider:

A fire in Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant briefly knocked out the cooling process for spent nuclear fuel rods, ProPublica reports. The fire occurred on June 7th.

On June 6th, the Federal Administration Aviation (FAA) issued a directive banning aircraft from entering the airspace within a two-mile radius of the plant. [...]

The plant is reportedly at a stage 4 level of emergency, though the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), which owns and operates the plant, denies this.

So, whether or not this turns out to be as dire as what happened in Japan, it is worrisome to say the very least.

Of course, I’m sure nobody expected this to happen.