TVA's Sequoyah Nuclear Plant sits on the Tennessee River (Chickamauga
Reservoir) about 7 miles east of Soddy-Daisy and ~20 miles north of
Chattanooga, at roughly 35.226, -85.092 (Wikipedia:
Sequoyah). If you
live in north Hamilton County, the sirens and evacuation signs you see are
for this plant.
This page answers the questions that come up constantly: what are those
sirens? and which way do I go?
If you hear sirens in the Sequoyah area, the odds are overwhelming that it's
the monthly test:
The critical thing to know: the Sequoyah sirens are only the
nuclear-plant prompt notification system. They are NOT weather/tornado
sirens. Hamilton County does not use outdoor sirens for tornado warnings
for weather you rely on phone alerts, weather radio, and TV/radio. So if
you hear a siren and it isn't the first Wednesday of the month at noon, and
it isn't clearly one-at-a-time fall testing, go indoors, turn on local
news / NOAA weather radio, and follow instructions - it may be the real
thing (TEMA).
The sirens cover the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) around the
plant, reaching into portions of Hamilton and Bradley counties.
Sirens are for notification only - they tell you to seek more
information, not to evacuate immediately.
The EPZ is divided into lettered sectors (A-D) with assigned routes and
shelter locations. If you live within ~10 miles of the plant (roughly
Soddy-Daisy, Bakewell, the Sequoyah area), TVA mails an annual nuclear
calendar with a map of your sector and the evacuation routes. If you don't
have one, you can look up your sector with TEMA's
sector lookup tool.
Routes are controlled evacuation routes, marked with arrows on the
official sector map and patrolled by law enforcement; each route has shelter
information points. The designated highways out of the Sequoyah area:
Where you go depends on your sector (A/B/C/D) - that's why knowing your
sector matters. In a real event you'd be told which routes to use and where
to report; don't just pick a direction at random.
Last updated: September 2026.