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For the first time, record-breaking water temperatures in Long Island Sound have forced the shutdown of the Unit 2 nuclear reactor at the Millstone Power Station.

It appears to be the only nuclear power plant in the nation forced to shut down this summer due to high water temperatures, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is the first time Unit 2 has been shut due to high water temperature since it began operations in 1975, according to Ken Holt, spokesman for Millstone owner Dominion.

A nuclear reactor in Maryland has been shut down because of wind damage, while others were either taken offline or operating at reduced capacity as precautionary measures before the arrival of hurricane Irene on Sunday.A reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Lusby, Maryland, remained off-line on Sunday, after going into automatic shutdown when a piece of aluminum siding ripped from a nearby building damaged a transformer.Constellation Energy, which operates the Lusby plant, said the facility was safe and that a second reactor was operating at full capacity. No power outages were expected because of the shutdown.

Maryland state emergency agency said the plant would reopen after inspection. "Number one will stay offline until they have folks that will crawl over every inch of it," its spokesman, Quentin Banks said.It was the second complete shutdown caused by Irene, after authorities took a plant offline in New Jersey as a precaution before the storm.Exelon Corporation decided on Saturday afternoon to take its Oyster Creek generator offline as Irene blew in. "It's really as a precaution, a conservative action, because we do expect hurricane force winds," Marshall Murphy, an Exelon spokesman, told reporters.

Fourteen nuclear plants from North Carolina to New Hampshire were in Irene's path