Does the prospect of nuclear disaster still frighten anyone these days?

[Anomalocaris]

I live within 100 miles of a nuclear power plant endangered by the massive Missouri River flood a few years ago.

Even though the plant was shut down for refueling, it was still a worry. Particularly after the flood subsided, and the NRC used ground penetrating radar all around the facility to see if the river had eroded voids under the plant.

If they are looking for a problem like that, I'm thinking the plausibility and the possibility of the plant suffering catastrophic damage in a flood is something to think about.

Also, there was some discussion about the 'what ifs' regarding 1, 2 or 3 of the large upstream dams failing. The water was bad enough as it was, a large dam failure would have raised the flood level near the power plant by 20 to 40 feet.

In such a disaster, there would be terrific damage from the water, possibly clear to New Orleans LA, and the possibility of that water being intensely radioactive, would make Fukushima look like a wet firecracker. The country would be nearly split in 2 with a muddy radioactive hell possibly tens of miles wide from Omaha to the Gulf of Mexico.

The sort of nuclear diseaster you describe would only occur if the working reactor core melts down. It is a foregone conclusion that the Containment around the reactor core would not be breached by either a massive flood, or an undermining of the foundation of the containment building. So the reactor melt down would not be the direct result of flooding. The only possible way a flooding could lead to core melt down is if it indirectly disrupts the power supply to coolant water pumps.

The avoidance of disruption of power supply to coolant pumps is simple as putting backup emergency diesel generator and its fuel supply above the flood level of the water.

So while anything would spread uncontrollable panic about a nuclear power plant, actual chance of a natural diseaster leading to a major nuclear diseaster is actually fairly low.