CNN 2011-07-05

 Oh,it's unprecedented¹. Three nuclear facilities in two states threatened by fire and water ,a massive wind-driven wildfire just miles from the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico, and floodwaters creeping up on two nuclear stations in Nebraska.

 

Now, my next guest actually describes it as Fukushima in slow motion.

 

But, first, CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano is giving us a lay of the land and kind of giving us the visual of where these are and how close everything is.

 

And, luckily, we are looking at super slow motion at this point.

 

Good, good.

 

MARCIANO: Here we go. Omaha, Nebraska, we've got two nuclear power stations , one to the south, one to the north.

 

The one to the north is the one we're most concerned about. That's been pretty much idle in the past several months. That was by design before even the flooding started. And now since the flood has come, they decided² to keep it idle.

 

But, nonetheless, they are trying to protect it. They've done it with some aqua dams, aqua berms to do that. They had one of those failed. That's when all the scare started to come to play here.

 

But as of now, we are OK, but the problem is, you know, we've got water is not going away any time soon. We're pretty cresting³ right now, OK? You see, the forecast keeps it pretty much flat line at least the next week and maybe more.

 

So, it's not going down, but not necessarily going up any more. But just the pressure alone is going to cause this battle to be ongoing⁴ and any more failures in any of these protective measures then we have the scare coming back.

 

All right. Let's talk about what is going on as far as the fires are concerned. Extreme and critical fire danger out the west and we've got smoke that's a problem across parts of New Mexico.

 

Here is what's going on at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The fire itself is to the south and west, about 60,000 acres have burned.

 

Let's kind of describe what happens at the lab itself. We've got several,you know, it's huge, like 40,000 , or 40 square miles here. This is a dump right here. This is and these are hazardous⁵ dumps, OK?

 

This one is underground. So, technically⁶, they are not too concerned about this. But these out here are not necessarily aren't underground. They are the most,they are the furthest away.

 

But if the fire creeps up on the lab and gets to those sites,that is the way I understand it, Kyra, those are the problem areas. And so, so they are trying to keep the fire away from the dump sites that are on the eastern edge of the lab. The fire right now is on the southwestern edge of the lab.

1 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 cresting   

n.顶饰v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的现在分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点

参考例句：

• The old man stood with his back to the fire, cresting up erect. 老人背火昂然而立。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Various shapes of returns like triangular, semi-circular are available for cresting your own office. 极富创意的办公桌，有着不同形装如三角形、半圆形、曲尺形及四边形，以创造您个人品位的办公室。 来自互联网

4 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

5 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

6 technically   

adv.专门地，技术上地

参考例句：

• Technically it is the most advanced equipment ever.从技术上说，这是最先进的设备。
• The tomato is technically a fruit,although it is eaten as a vegetable.严格地说，西红柿是一种水果，尽管它是当作蔬菜吃的。