Exelon Corp said last Saturday it took offline its Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey as a precautionary measure as Hurricane Irene bore down on the U.S. East Coast.
The reactor, which has a 636 megawatt capacity, enough power for 600,000 homes, was taken offline at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), according to Marshall Murphy, Director of nuclear communications at Exelon.
"It's really as a precaution, a conservative action because we do expect hurricane force winds," Murphy said.
The plant previously reduced reactor power to prepare for a possible shutdown.
Murphy said the duration of the outage will be short.
