Salem County Nuclear Plant Emergency Alert Was Sent Out Erroneously, New Jersey Officials Confirm

People in South Jersey were preparing for bed when the message “A civil authority has issued A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT WARNING for the following counties/areas: Cumberland; Salem, NJ; at 8:54 PM” flashed across their television screens, interrupting regularly scheduled programs.

Soon panic spread across the region and people dialed 911 for help when officials informed that the emergency alert was sent out by mistake and that there is no emergency situation at Salem County nuclear plant, NJ reported.

"There is no nuclear emergency at the plant," Brenda Banks, spokeswoman for Salem County said, NJ reported. The New Jersey Office of Emergency Management was quick to rectify the error by posting an update on both Facebook and Twitter before panic set in among the residents of the area.

The warning went out at 9 p.m. EDT following an emergency drill which was mistaken for an alert.

"We are conducting an emergency drill. Some of the drill scenarios were mistaken for an actual emergency," Joe Delmar, spokesman for PSEG Nuclear LLC said Tuesday night, the Daily Journal reported. "We are working with the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management to correct this information. Again, there is no emergency," he added.

An operator at the New Jersey State Police, under whose jurisdiction the state Office of Emergency Management falls, also corroborated the fact that the emergency alert was an error.

Reverse calls had to be sent out to all the households, assuring the residents that there was, in fact, no emergency warning issued.

Another signal of a nuclear emergency that was missing, following the erroneous emergency alert, was the sound of the sirens that are placed within a radius of 10-miles from PSEG Nuclear's artificial island generating complex. The sirens are programmed to get triggered immediately during an emergency situation.

Drills are a common practice at the Salem County nuclear plant and are conducted annually to keep the staff abreast of ways to deal with problems in case of an emergency. The drill that took place Tuesday was no different, officials have confirmed. The latest drill was regarding the Hope Creek reactor, which is operated by PSEG.

It has not yet been established under what circumstances the false emergency warning was issued. State officials are investigating the matter, which might continue through Wednesday.

The goof up, however, could have been averted had the one responsible for sending out the false message verified its source.