[TheDrive] On July 25, 1991, drivers traveling south along Highway 83 past Bismark, North Dakota came across an odd sight, a seemingly innocuous tractor trailer truck stopped along the road, guarded by police and heavily armed federal agents and leaking smoking goop. What local residents didn’t necessarily know ‐ and the Department of Energy wouldn’t tell them at the time ‐ was that they had seen a specialized truck for discreetly carrying nuclear weapons and other radioactive cargoes. These tractor trailers are booby trapped with countermeasures such as immobilizing foam and self-destruct systems, which all sound right out of a Hollywood blockbuster. They belong to the Office of Secure Transportation (OST), which has a checkered record of safety and disciplinary issues.
This eventually became OST, now part of the larger National Nuclear Security Administration, who continues to be in charge of moving America’s most dangerous weapons and other hazardous nuclear material "of strategic amounts" safely around the country. Before that, there were a variety of different organizations that handled disparate nuclear transportation operations.
"There are several things going on where the truck is and we’re looking at that area," was the cryptic response Ben McCarty, a Department of Energy spokesperson, gave the Bismark Tribune when they asked for answers following the 1991 incident. "We have operational responsibility for the vehicles and we’re checking it thoroughly."
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