FEMA-led disaster drill today at nuclear plant

Emergency management officials will take part in a simulated disaster exercise Tuesday at the Monticello nuclear plant.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will assess how the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Xcel Energy, and local officials respond to a simulated emergency at the central Minnesota nuclear plant.

The drill will involve hundreds of people at the state's emergency operation center in downtown St. Paul as well as in Monticello, according to Public Safety spokesman Doug Neville.

"The reason we do this is in the unlikely event that anything every happens at the plant that we're ready, that we're constantly evaluating how we prepare, and that we're confident in how we would respond in the unlikely event something happened," he said.

The agencies don't know what time the drill will start or what type of emergency they'll be dealing with.

"They've thrown a lot of different things at us in the past, from plane crashes to -- believe it or not -- earthquakes, and just some kind of mechanical failure," Neville said. "But from our perspective we plan and we train and we practice this. No matter what the scenario is on site we have certain steps that we take."