Bomb Team Called Out To Nuclear Power Plant In North Texas

AMARILLO, TX -- A security event has been reported Monday morning at a nuclear power plant in Amarillo.

"The Pantex Plant is experiencing an operational emergency. The Emergency Response Organization has been activated," the company tweeted at 11:59 a.m. That tweet was followed up by one at 12:30 p.m. claiming access to "FM2373 has decreased north of Hwy. 60" while the company investigated a "security event."

Carson County Sheriff and the Amarillo Police Department responded to the plant.

"The bomb team has been called in to assist," Jeb Hilton, spokesman for APD, told Patch. The bomb team was called at 12:18 p.m.

At 12:47 p.m., Pantex tweeted that the "security event at Pantex has ended without incident. Thanks to the Carson County Sheriff and @AmarilloPD for their quick response."

The Pantex Plant is the country's primary facility for the final assembly, dismantlement and maintenance of nuclear weapons, the company state's on its website. The plant was opened in 1975 and has dismantled thousands of weapons retired from the stockpile by the military and placed the resulting plutonium pits in interim storage, the company added. Pantex sits on a 18,000-acre site and has 650 buildings.

This story will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

(For more news and information like this, subscribe to Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here.)

Photo via Twitter