The shot never taken

[orionid]

So, on my second day of work at North Anna Power Station……

I’m headed to bed, so I’ll spare the long version of the story. I was outside doing a fire-fighting trainer. It turned out that standing at the epicenter meant I had front row seats to the coolest thing I have ever seen. Before the quake was even over, both plants tripped into an automatic safety shutdown, the diesels fired up, and the plants started venting secondary steam for pressure and temperature control I don’t know what pressure the steam system runs at (and probably couldn’t say if I did), but general nuclear experience says it’s several times in excess of anything you’ll find with a garage air compressor.

When those steam valves popped open, two giant plumes of steam shot loudly and violently straight up into the air, starkly contrasted against a solid blue sky. Using model rocketry experience, I guesstimated the height of the plumes to be about 4000-4500 feet high. Almost a mile. I wanted my camera. It was at home 40 miles away. I reached for my phone. Then I thought about the security papers I signed the day before. I decided I didn’t want to get fired on my first week. So, yeah. It was pretty sweet looking.

/And everything is okay
//No Fukushima Daiichi part II
///If you hear about a leak on the news, it was diesel freshwater – lake water that’s used to cool off the emergency diesel.
////Culpeper didn’t fair so well. Old main street buildings shitting bricks all over the sidewalk.

[Plamadude30k]

Hey, cool. Good to hear you got a new job too!

[ravnostic]

Ditto on the job thingy!! I’m very glad to hear you’re gainfully employed again (means you won’t have as much time to come up with shots that, frankly, blow the rest of us out of the diesel water). 🙂

I was outside doing a fire-fighting trainer.

😯

😛

[kashari]

Ditto on the job thingy!! I’m very glad to hear you’re gainfully employed again (means you won’t have as much time to come up with shots that, frankly, blow the rest of us out of the diesel water). 🙂

I was outside doing a fire-fighting trainer.

😯

😛

😆 I had the same expression!

Congrats on the job & hope the trainer was hot, Orion!

[orionid]

*sigh* damn yous guys. I was tired and in a hurry, so I apparently selected my vocabulary porly. I was outside, performing a training exercise that involved extinguishing various types of fires with various types of extinguishers.

Or I was making sweet outdoor studlove with a hot, burly firefighter and calling it training. Take your pick.

/also when I left the training building during Thursdays thunderstorms, I saw a forked bolt strike the lightning magnets on top of both plants simultaneously. Quite a wicked site.

[Plamadude30k]

/also when I left the training building during Thursdays thunderstorms, I saw a forked bolt strike the lightning magnets on top of both plants simultaneously. Quite a wicked site.

*WISH* you coulda gotten a nice shot of that. I’m picturing something really super-villain awesome in my head.

[Author]

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