early 1954 the Paducah gaseous diffusion plants were producing enriched uranium and by September the Portsmouth plants were in operation. two large Hanford reactors went into operation in 1955. The Thereafter, the Commission consistently exceeded goals for the production of fissionable materials.7? As the Commission produced more enriched uranium and plutonium it ‘built additional plants to assemble weapons. The Commission erected plants for manufacturing weapon parts in Rocky Flats, Colorado (1952)., Kansas City, Missouri (1952), Burlington, Iowa (1952), Miamisburg, Ohio (1955), and Pinellas, Florida (1957), and also opened a weapon assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas in 1952. Weapon engineering for the Livermore Laboratory was concentrated in a Livermore branch of Sandia laboratories in 1958.74 The production and assembly plants produced a large weapon stockpile. By 1953 assenbled weapons were being tumed over to the military and by 1956 most of the stockpile was in the physical, if not the formal, control of the Defense Department. The Canmission, however, continued to exercise its statutory responsibility to maintain safe, but reliable weapons. As the stockpile grew, the number of nuclear weapons being transported and stored around the coumtry increased. To prepare for the remte possibility that a transit or storage accident might Getonate the conventional explosive in a weapon, the Commission incorporated safety considerations into weapon design, drew up policies for safely transporting and storing weapons, and established special teams 19 i trained and equipped to handle a weapon accident.”