People in New Hill, North Carolina were pulled to a state of panic as a siren went off on Friday afternoon from the Shearon Harris nuclear plant. As fear gripped the area, authorities confirmed that the activation of alarm was accidental.
Within minutes after the incident, the Apex Police Department confirmed that there is nothing wrong with the nuclear power plant. In another tweet, police made it clear that Shearon Harris is working to resolve the issues with the siren. The legal authority also requested the public to be patient until the problem is solved.
Sharon Harris is working to resolve the issue with the sirens. Please be patient. We will share more information when we have it.
— Apex Police Dept. (@ApexPolice) January 19, 2018
Officials at the Wake County too informed that the alarm has been blown accidentally.
We're told the sirens that went off at the Harris Nuclear Plant are a false alarm. Please follow @DukeEnergy for more information.
— Wake County, NC (@WakeGOV) January 19, 2018
"We have confirmed with Emergency Management staff that the sirens going off at the Harris Nuclear Plant this afternoon are a false alarm," said the Wake County officials in a recently issued statement.
In the meantime, a spokesperson for Duke Energy which owns the plant issued a statement and informed that the company is investigating on things which prompted the alarm to sound just minutes before 01.00 PM.
"This afternoon several sirens around the Harris Nuclear Plant malfunctioned, specifically near Apex and Cary. There is no impact to the public and no need for public actions," said the Duke Energy's spokesperson.
Even though Duke Energy has clarified on the issue, several people criticized the company for taking too long to provide information about the false alarm issue. A Twitter user named Ashley Langley posted on Twitter stating that the customer service of Duke Energy was totally unaware of the incident and blamed the company for asking his billing address instead of addressing a probable disaster.
@DukeEnergy customer service line was absolutely unaware of the issue and more worried about my billing address than a possible disaster; initial person wouldn't talk to me without knowing where I lived instead of listening to what I was saying #sodisappointing
— Ashley Langley (@ncknitty) January 19, 2018
The false alarm in Shearon Harris nuclear plant was blown just days after a text message was accidentally sent to people in Hawaii by Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency prompting them to prepare for an Inter-Continental Ballistic missile hit.
