Oct. 6--SAN ONOFRE -- Some North County residents say upgrades under way at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station should stop until the public is better educated about nuclear disaster preparedness and until the results of a recent emergency-response drill at the plant are released.

Erin Morin, an avocado farmer from east Oceanside's rural Sleeping Indian neighborhood, said Monday that she and many others believe public safety meetings should have been held in North County before work recently started to replace San Onofre's steam generators. The nuclear power plant is roughly 18 miles north of Oceanside.

The $680 million replacement operation will require cutting 28-foot holes in the plant's giant concrete containment domes. Officials shut down the plant's Unit 2 reactor last week as the first step in the process.

"A lot of people were surprised to hear that it's already started," Morin said.

"When it's fire season, I know it's fire season. If there's work on the nuclear reactor, why aren't they holding public hearings just to get the public informed, so that they know what to do if something happens?" Morin asked.

Neither the plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Federal Emergency Management Agency has held public meetings to specifically discuss safety at San Onofre during the replacement project.

However, FEMA held a meeting Sept. 25 in San Juan Capistrano to talk about the results of a recent two-day safety drill that is conducted every two years at San Onofre.

Carlsbad resident Carla Mays said she went with Morin and other local residents to that meeting and left feeling that more should be done to educate the public in North County -- especially before San Onofre's owner, Southern California Edison, begins cutting holes in the containment domes.

Mays said she and others have contacted Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to ask them to halt the upgrades until FEMA has "gotten the community prepared." Neither senator's staff returned calls last week for comment on Mays' request.

Harry Sherwood, branch chief of FEMA's Technological Hazards Division, ran the meeting that Mays and Morin attended in late September.

He said that he may decide to increase the about of public education that the department employs, but added that his main communications efforts are with the numerous public emergency agencies, from local police and fire departments to Marine Corps staff at Camp Pendleton, to make sure that safety plans are followed precisely in the event of an emergency.