Posted on 11/09/2017 8:44:42 AM PST by MarchonDC09122009
News Military training exercise to test local response to sustained power outages
Updated: Nov 07, 2017 12:14 PM CST
MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin’s Department of Military Affairs is warning Columbia County residents of an increased law enforcement presence on the ground and in the air next week for a training exercise.
The training in Columbia County and at Wisconsin’s Emergency Operations center in Madison starts Nov. 14, and is in conjunction with a national-level exercise, known as Grid Ex, that takes place Nov. 15-16, officials said.
The public might see increased law enforcement presence and military personnel, including non-military unmanned aerial vehicles, in the area starting Nov. 14, according to a release. The exercise will continue until mid-morning the next day.
GridEx tests local, county and state emergency management officials, as well as National Guard and private utilities partners, on their responses to sustained power outages resulting from threats to the power grid, officials said.
November’s training will involve local, county and state law enforcement agencies and first responders, soldiers and airmen from the Wisconsin National Guard and Alliant Energy partners, according to the release.
Yeah, just keep the lights off, lol.
Sounds like a good time for citizens to track government response to a sustained power outage.
Related to upcoming National Grid-EX Nov 15-16 exercise?
Federal Deadline requiring ALL healthcare providers participating in the US gov’t Medicare program have approved Emergency prep plan in place.
Coincidence?
“Based on CMS’s expanded conditions of participation, all medical providers must have a compliant Emergency Preparedness Program in place by November 15, 2017.
All 17 types of Medicare providers and suppliers are required to comply with the new guidelines (including physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers (ASC), hospitals, critical access hospitals (CAHs), Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs)).”
Additional detail -
https://dma.wi.gov/DMA/news/2017news/17146
Exercise set for Columbia County Nov. 14-15 in conjunction with GridEx
Written by Wisconsin National Guard Public Affairs Office
Published: November 7, 2017
MADISON, Wis. — A two-day exercise in Columbia County and at Wisconsin’s Emergency Operations Center in Madison kicks off Nov. 14. The exercise is in conjunction with a national-level exercise, known as GridEx, which takes place on Nov. 15-16.
The public should not be alarmed or concerned if they notice an increased law enforcement presence and military personnel, as well as vehicles and equipment, including non-military unmanned aerial vehicles, in the area beginning the morning of Nov. 14. The exercise will continue until mid-morning the next day.
GridEx aims to test local, county and state emergency management officials as well as the National Guard and private utilities partners on their responses to sustained power outages resulting from threats to the power grid. November’s exercise will involve local, county and state law enforcement and first responders, Soldiers and Airmen from the Wisconsin National Guard and Alliant Energy partners who graciously offered the use of their Columbia County facility as a training site.
“GridEx is a great opportunity for our emergency management officials, the National Guard, local first responders and our private industry partners to train together so we are ready to respond if a threat impacted our power grid,” Maj. Gen. Don Dunbar, Wisconsin’s adjutant general said. “While we simply can’t train for every possible scenario, building relationships now makes us all better prepared if we had to respond to a real-world situation.”
Over the past several years, Wisconsin has placed an emphasis on the importance of preparing for a long-term power outage and developing capabilities to respond to a cyber incident. As a result, the state began developing new partnerships, policies and plans as well as a strategy that culminates in a full-scale exercise in spring 2018 called Dark Sky, which will simulate a power outage caused by a combination of cyber and physical threats. GridEx will help all participants continue to build and refine processes to better prepare for the Dark Sky exercise as well as real-world scenarios.
The state Emergency Operations Center, the Business Emergency Operations Center, utilities and transmission providers in the state and approximately 65 Soldiers from the National Guard Reaction Force are all involved in the exercise along with Columbia County and a number of federal agencies, including the FBI and FEMA Region V.
While nationally, GridEx takes place Nov. 15 and 16, the exercise in Columbia County will begin Nov. 14 and conclude Nov. 15. For more information on GridEx, visit http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/CIPOutreach/Pages/GridEX.aspx.
I work in a hospital.
This Emergency Prep Plan replaces the ones that have been in place since...forever.
This time there are things like business contingency planning and Business continuity—more like a depth chart for staffing in all departments.
The Emergency Plans have been in place for the ten years I’ve been here. These news ones add like two more pages.
And it means that a lot of department heads actually have to think about stuff they never thing of. Its kind of cute.
Mutually agree that effective disaster planning is essential.
Plans and drills are all good and well.
What’s troubling is the fact that the US gov’t refuses to ensure that our nat’l power grid is hardened against CME and EMP threats resulting in sustained electricity outages and critical supply chain interruption.
"The training in Columbia County and at Wisconsin’s Emergency Operations center in Madison starts Nov. 14,
and is in conjunction with a national-level exercise,
known as Grid Ex, that takes place Nov. 15-16, officials said.
The public might see increased law enforcement presence and military personnel, including non-military unmanned aerial vehicles,
in the area starting Nov. 14, according to a release.
The exercise will continue until mid-morning the next day.
GridEx tests local, county and state emergency management officials, as well as National Guard and private utilities partners, on their responses to sustained power outages resulting from threats to the power grid, officials said."
This exercise may provide civilian insight into utilities, Law enforcement, and military policies and procedures to be used during a sustained power outage.
Please note that this exercise also includes non-military unmanned aerial vehicles.
This exercise has nothing to do with threats from "Rocket Man"...... rite !../s
H/T TADSLOS
We get a letter in the mail about once a month that I call the Keeping-Up-With-The-Jonses letter from National Grid. It's a stupid comparison of how our electric usuage compares to our neighbors.
We're doing what we can to reduce our electric usage anyways and it's not because I care much about globull warming, or cooling, or climate change or whatever they are calling it today.
It's simply that I do not want to pay them a nicel more than I have to.
The stupid letter goes right in the trash without even opening it. I. DON'T. CARE.
I'd rather they quit wasting money on these mailings and do something useful, like hardening the grid with the money.
Thanks, TIK.
I am so sick of that letter!
If it comes to that, I don't think it is going to be fingers they are pointing.
News flash. There are not enough military/police to enforce martial law in this country. Not everywhere anyway. Luckily my guns are not electric....
Bookmark
How could you possibly harden millions and millions of miles of wiring and transformers around the country?
RE: “How could you possibly harden millions and millions of miles of wiring and transformers around the country?”
Millions of miles of wire are not the endpoint damage issue.
The concern is what will happen to the thousands of mission-critical major power transformers and power plant ICS-SCADA systems that get severely damaged by kilo volts of stray electrical currents traveling atmospherically and via power lines as a result of a sufficently powerful EMP or CME event.
Read more before further commenting.
https://securethegrid.com/emp-technologys-worst-nightmare/
The Congressional EMP Commission, since disbanded, spent eight years developing a plan to protect all infrastructures from EMP – a plan that would also mitigate threats from cyber-attack, sabotage, and natural disasters that could be implemented in 3-5 years at a cost of $10-20 billion.
The Congressional EMP Commission estimated in 2008 it would cost $2 billion to:
-> *harden the grid’s critical nodes (i.e., roughly 2,000 large and medium-sized transformers and their associated SCADA systems, etc.). <-
Modest when compared with the unimaginably high costs associated with trying to remediate after an EMP event. Yet, it has been an excuse for inaction.
The above TV documentary from National Geographic is based on Dr. Peter Pry’s book entitled Electric Armageddon: Civil-Military Preparedness for an Electromagnetic Pulse Catastrophe (2013). Dr. Pry serves as one of our experts at the Secure the Grid Coalition.
Getting ready: Pentagon to protect electric grid from massive attack
www.washingtonexaminer.com/getting-ready-pentagon-to-... Proxy Highlight
Apr 14, 2017 ... Woolsey and former EMP Commission chief of staff Peter Vincent Pry have pointed a finger at North Korea, which is now threatening the U.S..
Grid-protecting CIPA: Enacted, but in time? - Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/14/grid-protect... Proxy Highlight
Feb 14, 2017 ... Eight years ago, the Congressional EMP Commission urged Capitol Hill ... the electric grid and other critical infrastructures from a man-made or ... CIPA implements one of the most important recommendations of the EMP Commission to ... development of new technologies to make EMP hardening of all the ...
EMP Resilience Action Plan - Department of Energy
https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/DOE%2... Proxy Highlight
Jan 10, 2017 ... DOE Electromagnetic Pulse Resilience Action Plan .... 3.1 Establish a national capability to conduct EMP testing of grid components, systems, and ..... to the electric power system in the 2008 EMP Commission report. .... military systems and hardening standards, in order to define and release unclassified.
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