Any one ever hear of narac in the news

If you have heard that the United States faces no risk at this point from radioactive emissions from the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plants, the assessment probably came from scientists at an emergency command center on the campus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The New York Times reported Monday that the Department of Energy has activated the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) at LLNL as part of efforts to predict how events at the nuclear power plant complex about 65 kilometers south of Sendai on the northeast Japanese coast will affect the U.S. mainland and Alaska.

The Japanese government declared an emergency at the complex on the morning of March 12, about 17 hours after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami slammed into five nuclear power plants at the site. The initial disaster has triggered a series of safety-related emergencies linked to the loss of coolant and possible partial meltdowns of reactor cores.

As of noon Tuesday, hydrogen gas explosions had ripped through three reactor buildings, contributing to the release of radioactive cesium gas and forcing Japanese authorities to evacuate everyone within a 20-kilometer radius of the facilities.

The full extent of NARAC's role in disaster response and monitoring has not been disclosed, but the facility and its scientists in Livermore are equipped to assess the situation. The center’s mission is to provide real-time computer predictions about the size, movement and public health threat of toxic gas plumes from environmental and man-made disasters.

From information drawn from the LLNL website, the technical framework for NARAC at the Livermore lab was established in 2000 with the installation of high-powered computers and software dedicated to the task. It combines data from its stored base of geographic and meteorological information with disaster and weather data to create three-dimensional maps predicting the size, density, toxicity and movement of gas plumes.

http://walnutcreek.patch.com/articles/livermore-lab-advises-feds-on-japa...

Data was available where are these maps are they to "dire"

U.S. officials have told NBC News that they're seeing a disparity between Japanese radiation readings and the readings they've been getting from military monitors.
Concerns about the release of radiation from Japan's stricken nuclear plants at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex began with data collection on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. On Monday, the U.S. Seventh Fleet relocated its ships and aircraft out of the downwind direction after crew members returning to the carrier were found to have picked up low levels of radioactive contamination. The personnel were scrubbed down with soap and water, then declared contamination-free.
Since then, the data on radiation releases suggest a range of outcomes, going all the way up to "dire," the officials said. They spoke with NBC on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the findings publicly.
NBC's sources said the Japan nuclear site and its surroundings are being monitored by a variety of U.S. aircraft, including:
U-2 spy planes. The U-2s, flying out of Okinawa, have "radiation suites" that can take readings at various altitudes.
Global Hawk drone.The Global Hawk remote-controlled plane, now on its second run, has multispectral imaging capabilities, including thermal infrared and synthetic aperture radar. Kyodo News Service quoted Japanese government sources as saying that the Global Hawk was taking images of the inside of the reactor buildings.
WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft. One radiation-sniffing WC-135, basically a converted Boeing 707 jet, is on its way from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to the area around Japan, where it will take atmospheric readings.
Intelligence experts also tell NBC News that the United States has a network of ground-level stations around the world that monitor radiation and can backtrack to calculate how much has been dispersed from a specific site.
Officials said several agencies are analyzing the data, including the Department of Energy's Nuclear National Security Administration and the CIA.