The Savannah River Site, a nuclear facility in South Carolina operated by the U.S. Department of Energy, went on lockdown for nearly three hours on Monday after a bomb-sniffing dog overreacted to a Coca-Cola delivery truck.
Reuters reported that the site went on lockdown around 3 p.m., prompting the closing of site barricades to incoming traffic, among other procedures. Law enforcement from both South Carolina and Georgia were alerted.
"We had a vendor come up to one of our entry control areas. It was inspected. We got both electronic and canine positives for explosive residue, so we then implemented our emergency response procedures and that started the events from the day," Savannah River Site spokesman Jim Guisti
told CBS affiliate WRDW-TV of Augusta.
He said the Coca-Cola truck turned out to be what it purported. After experts found no "actual explosive residue" nor trigger device, it was determined the whole thing was a "false alarm."
The site's H Area, where highly enriched uranium is processed for use in commercial reactors, was put on a "phase II" alert, requiring that technicians shelter in place in their offices.
SRS was built in the post-World War II era, and produced one-third of the nation's weapon's grade plutonium from 1953 to 1988. Over the years, two of the site's five reactors have been deactivated, and the site now blends enriched uranium for commercial electricity purposes.
It is also a nuclear waste storage facility, and roughly 36 million gallons of radioactive liquid are stored in nearly 50 underground tanks.
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