"The Pantex Plant is experiencing an operational emergency," the Pantex Plant Twitter account tweeted Tuesday. "The Emergency Response Organization has been activated." Local news website My High Plains reports that the Emergency Response Organization comprises elite employees with in-depth knowledge of the plant's operations and emergency response processes.
An hour later, Pantex Plant announced that the unspecified "security incident has ended without incident." The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) confirmed that an "all clear" sign had been issued to the public.
The plant, located in Carson City, Texas, is the main location where nuclear arms are assembled, disassembled and maintained in the US.
During the enigmatic incident, the Carson County Sheriff's Department said that the eastern part of the plant was rendered completely inaccessible. Emergency teams in Armstrong County, Carson County, the Amarillo/Potter/Randall Office of Emergency Management and DPS were notified of the event and took "appropriate" action, My High Plains reported.
Local highways were temporarily shut down while officials responded to the mysterious emergency.
The plant is operated and managed by Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC, under a contract from the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Back in 2005, Pantex Plant also made headlines when the facility's employees nearly detonated a W-56 warhead — 100 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima — by accident while trying to take it apart, according to the Sun.