Emergency Classification

"An Emergency Classification is a set of plant conditions which indicate a level of risk to the public. Both nuclear power plants and research and test reactors use the four emergency classifications listed below in order of increasing severity. The vast majority of events reported to the NRC are routine in nature and do not require activation of our incident response program. Recognizing that security-related events may involve different response actions from the licensees, the NRC issued Bulletin 2005-02, Emergency Preparedness and Response Actions for Security-Based Events. This bulletin identifies minor changes to the emergency classification levels to reflect emphasis of post-9/11 conditions."