http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/05/28/police-lost-couple-cut-chain-pa-nuclear-plant/85116496/YORK, Pa. — A Virginia couple who got lost in Pennsylvania drove up to the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station where they cut a chain at a fenced-in area, police say.
Timothy Lee Stewart, 28, of Chesapeake, Va., drove his red 1998 Dodge Stratus to an access road off where he came upon a "secured fenced-in area" Friday night, according to charging documents.
That's where police said he cut a chain to a gate.
His girlfriend, Jenilee Jean Simpson, 33, told police she had been asleep and when she woke up, whe saw Stewart cutting the lock off of a fence, documents state. She said she then went back to sleep.
At no time did the couple pose a threat to the plant, which is owned by Exelon, said Krista Merkel, a company spokeswoman.
"It seemed they inadvertently made it to our property and were trying to find their way back out," Merkel said on Saturday. "They thought the only way they could get back was to cut the fence."
Simpson and Stewart were on Exelon property the whole time and never made it to the plant's "vital" areas, Merkel said. She said that security was monitoring them while they were on plant property.
According to police, who say they consulted with security staff, the couple made it to a "highly security sensitive area where radioactive material is transferred from the main power plant."
A fence there surrounds a "smoke-stack type structure," documents state. There is a nearby outbuilding, and if the couple had gone inside, the security staff would have placed the plant on lockdown with a "possibility of lethal force being used," documents state.
But Merkel said she was able to confirm Saturday that the couple had not made it to any areas where radioactive materials are transferred or stored. She said the couple didn't make it past any security officers, who monitor all four sides of the plant constantly. Exelon owns 600 acres at the plant, not all of which are "vital" areas, she said.
Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also said there was no threat to the plant or harm done to equipment.
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