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Military training exercise to test local response to sustained power outages
WISC-TV ^ | 11/07/2017 | WISC TV

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.


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: energy; exercise; gridex; outage; power; powergrid; poweroutage; poweroutagetest; wisconsin
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FYI: This announcement pertains to upcoming Nov 15-16 GridEx national power grid outage exercise.
1 posted on 11/09/2017 8:44:42 AM PST by MarchonDC09122009
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Oh boy.

Pull the plug. Institute martial law.

Easy peasy.


2 posted on 11/09/2017 8:47:41 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Relates to post:

http://www.nerc.com/pa/CI/CIPOutreach/Pages/GridEX.aspx

GridEx
GridEx III Logo(clear border).png
GridEx IV is the biennial exercise designed to simulate a cyber/physical attack on electric and other critical infrastructures across North America, and will involve:

· Electric Utilities;
· Regional (Local, State, Provincial) and Federal Government agencies in law enforcement, first response, and
intelligence community functions;
· Critical Infrastructure Cross-Sector partners (ISACs and other utilities), and;
· Supply Chain stakeholder organizations.

GridEx IV Dates
November 15-16, 2017

Due to the sensitive nature of the scenario discussion, this exercise program is not open to the general public or the media. A public report will be available after the exercise concludes.
TLP_WHITE_GridEx IV Fact Sheet_20161202.docxTLP_WHITE_GridEx_IV_Frequently_Asked_Questions_20170803.docx
TLP_WHITE_GridEx IV Fact Sheet_20161202.docxTLP_WHITE_GridEx IV Fact Sheet_20161202.docx
More Information
Contact Jake Schmitter, Senior Manager, Exercises and Training, Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

GridEx program history:
NERC conducted its third sector-wide grid security exercise, GridEx III, in November 2015. The first grid security exercise took place in November 2011. These geographically distributed exercises were designed to execute the electricity sector’s crisis response to simulated coordinated cybersecurity and physical security threats and incidents, to strengthen utilities’ crisis response functions, and to provide input for lessons learned.

Objectives
The objectives for GridEx III were:
· Exercise crisis response and recovery
· Improve communications
· Identify lessons learned
· Engage senior leadership

Exercise Construct
GridEx III was made up of a grid-focused operational exercise for participants across North America and a tabletop discussion for executives. The majority of participants took part in the exercise from their place of work over two days and received sequenced email messages that detailed simulated scenario conditions. Based on this information, participants responded with simulated internal and external crisis response and information sharing activities. An exercise control cell, based in the Washington, D.C. area, managed scenario distribution, monitored the exercise and gathered lessons learned.

Previous GridEx Participation
GridEx III was the largest cyber and physical security exercise of its kind, involving more than 4,400 participants from 364 industry and government organizations in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The tabletop discussion involved senior leaders from the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council and US government executives. Lessons learned from the exercise are available in a public report, below.

GridEx III Public Report

GridEx II Public Report

GridEx 2011 After Action Report


3 posted on 11/09/2017 8:48:45 AM PST by MarchonDC09122009 (When is our next march on DC? When have we had enough?)
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To: MarchonDC09122009
I think Rod Serling already knew the answer 50 years ago.


4 posted on 11/09/2017 8:51:45 AM PST by jiggyboy (Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Ahhhh, at last, the round-up of radicals begins in a breeder factory.. Fitting. :-}


5 posted on 11/09/2017 8:56:55 AM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi - Monthly Donors Rock!!!)
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To: BenLurkin

>>Easy peasy.

See spot
See spot flare
See spot hide
Where’s spot?

It’s dark, and cold.
Rutroh!

If the North Koreans or whoever don’t do it - the Aten will.

“Be Be Be Prepared the motto of the Boy Scouts....”


6 posted on 11/09/2017 9:01:54 AM PST by HLPhat ("TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS" -- Government with any other purpose is not American.)
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To: MarchonDC09122009

For years, if not decades, we’ve known the power grid was vulnerable and outdated. But nothing was ever done to rectify the problem. Nothing.

I’ve asked electric companies why they neglect the problem when they know what a sustained power outage means. I’ve also pulled workers aside and asked them privately similar questions. At the very least, isn’t that what the regulators should be concerned about?

Nobody has any answers - at least to me.

Someone tell me why this is not all a plan to usher in Martial Law and/or a Police State - with minimum of resistance from the commoners.


7 posted on 11/09/2017 9:03:15 AM PST by Paulie (America without Christ is like a Chemistry book without the periodic table.)
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To: Tilted Irish Kilt

Ping.


8 posted on 11/09/2017 9:05:46 AM PST by TADSLOS (Reset Underway!)
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To: Paulie; All

Relates to post and your concerns regarding government deliberate inaction to harden power grid, will ensure an inevitable “very bad day”.

http://www.arrl.org/news/communications-interoperability-training-with-amateur-radio-community-set

[UPDATED 3 November 2017 @ 2320 UTC]

From the  U.S. Army’s Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM): The exercise will simulate a power-outage scenario; it will not impact any public or private communications. There will be no power outages or communication systems outages.

This exercise is designed to improve readiness, build cooperation and public awareness, and better prepare to defend the nation.

To clarify time of broadcast on 60 meters: A military station on the east coast and the Fort Huachuca, Arizona, HF station will conduct a high-power broadcast on 60-meter channel 1 (5330.5 kHz) on November 5 from 0300 to 0315 UTC (Saturday, November 4, in US time zones).


Elements of the US Department of Defense (DOD) will conduct a “communications interoperability” training exercise November 4-6, once again simulating a “very bad day” scenario. Amateur Radio and MARS organizations will take part.

“This exercise will begin with a notional massive coronal mass ejection event which will impact the national power grid as well as all forms of traditional communication, including landline telephone, cellphone, satellite, and Internet connectivity,” Army MARS Program Manager Paul English, WD8DBY, explained in an announcement.

During the exercise, a designated DOD Headquarters entity will request county-by-county status reports for the 3,143 US counties and county equivalents, in order to gain situational awareness and to determine the extent of impact of the scenario. Army and Air Force MARS organizations will work in conjunction with the Amateur Radio community, primarily on the 60-meter interoperability channels as well as on HF NVIS frequencies and local VHF and UHF, non-Internet linked Amateur Radio repeaters.

Again this year, a military station on the east coast and the Fort Huachuca, Arizona, HF station will conduct a high-power broadcast on 60-meter channel 1 (5330.5 kHz) on November 5 from 0300 to 0315 UTC (Saturday, November 4, in US time zones). New this year will be an informational broadcast on Sunday, November 5, on 13,483.5 kHz USB from 1600 to 1615 UTC. Amateur Radio operators should monitor these broadcasts for more information about the exercise and how they can participate in this communications exercise, English said.

“We want to continue building on the outstanding cooperative working relationship with the ARRL and the Amateur Radio community,” English said. “We want to expand the use of the 60-meter interop channels between the military and amateur community for emergency communications, and we hope the Amateur Radio community will give us some good feedback on the use of both the 5-MHz interop and the new 13-MHz broadcast channels as a means of information dissemination during a very bad day scenario.


9 posted on 11/09/2017 9:09:39 AM PST by MarchonDC09122009 (When is our next march on DC? When have we had enough?)
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To: jiggyboy

Just don’t be the only guy on the street with power.


10 posted on 11/09/2017 9:11:53 AM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Required reading I also highly recommend “One Second After.” http://www.onesecondafter.com/

Then there’s “A Failure of Civility” for organizing a local defense force. Hard to find, but it’s on PDF on the internet. https://www.amazon.com/Failure-Civility-Mike-Garand/dp/0615670105


11 posted on 11/09/2017 9:19:24 AM PST by ebshumidors
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To: Paulie

We are on a well system. Two days ago our well pump failed and for a couple of reasons we won’t be able to get a new pump in and have our water fully restored until late tomorrow.

We are quite resourceful and have great neighbors who have allowed us use of their water via filling up buckets from their hose. This has brought to the brutal fore about half the distress and mass bedlam there would be with significant and sustained power outages as a result of the grid being crippled.

We have electricity of course, but being totally without running water is very difficult instantly requiring life altering changes. Toilets no longer flush. There are no showers. Simple hand washing becomes a minor project. There is no laundry and cleaned clothes. Very quickly sanitation becomes an issue.

We will have our running water restored, but this very clearly brought into focus the absolute catastrophe it would be to have the grid go down. I kind of clucked my tongue when some reports have said that millions would die after a short period of time with widespread power outages. I now completely agree. The larger the grid outage the more multiples of millions will die.

Lack of water. Lack of refrigeration. Lack of heat. Sanitation will rapidly go. People will easily and very, very quickly panic and the thin social structure will fast be gone and it will be every man for himself/family.

That utilities and their overseers haven’t hardened the system is simply unbelievable to me. Power companies waste a lot of ratepayer money on really stupid stuff, but they never institute even a long range plan to harden their system. Regulators don’t require it yet provide incentives to chase stupid green technology.

A complete mystery. One day we will pay for this and the lucky survivors will get to point fingers at those to blame.


12 posted on 11/09/2017 9:23:17 AM PST by Obadiah
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Operation Generator Confiscation...


13 posted on 11/09/2017 9:26:44 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: MarchonDC09122009; All

Any thoughts on? -

Why does the gov’t bother to fund biannual national power grid outage exercises when it continuously refuses to require / fund essential power grid hardening, thereby ensuring a future severe CME solar flare or enemy EMP attack cripples our nation?...

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2017/10/02/a-call-for-a-presidential-commission-on-emp/

A Call For a Presidential Commission On EMP
Articles | October 2, 2017 | Asia, Energy Security, Infrastructure and EMP, Nuclear Deterrence, Russia

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Interview with Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, the Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the Director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum. Dr. Pry also served on the Congressional EMP Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission and as an analyst in the Central Intelligence Agency.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio, this is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. I have come to admire greatly the intelligence as well as the commitment to public service as our first guest. He is Dr. Peter Vincent Pry; he has been for many years involved with intelligence, analysis and policy application in successive roles in the U.S. Congress and he was also before that an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Pry has been perhaps best known however for his long and dedicated service to a commission that Congress established to provide a second opinion a detailed understanding of the threat arising to our nation from electro-magnetic pulse. This EMP threat commission is now, I am devastated to report, about to expire and with it an end of some 17 years of warnings and profoundly important recommendations about the threat we are facing to our electric grid most especially. We are delighted to have Dr. Pry with us to talk a bit about the nature of this EMP threat and what must be done about it at this moment. Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, thank you so much for joining us again. It’s good to talk to you.

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

Thank you for having me Frank.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

So very quickly Peter, just a 101 introduction to our audience, though I think most of them are pretty familiar with this phenomenon. But what is electro-magnetic pulse? How could it be inflicted upon this country and with what effects?

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

Yeah, an EMP can be caused by nature, a solar storm from the sun, which could generate an EMP which is akin to a super-energetic radio wave with enough energy in it to destroy electronics within the EMP field. In the case of a true magnetic superstorm like the 1859 solar event, it would affect the whole world and would cause the collapse of electric grid and electronics everywhere in the world. In the case of a nuclear weapon from terrorists or a rogue state like North Korea, that has just recently tested a hydrogen bomb that they describe as a low-yield type weapon which has a setting for a super EMP, you know you could affect all of North America with a single such weapon. With the collapse of our electric grid, which is our biggest concern, because if we had a blackout which lasted a year or even months could lose millions of Americans, the EMP Commission has estimated up to 9 out of 10 Americans could die in a nationwide blackout that lasted one year, starvation and societal collapse.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

It’s just unimaginably awful. But Peter Pry, when you look at what has been warned about by the Commission for these 17 or so years, what has been the response of the federal government and the electric utilities to these warnings?  Have your recommendations as a Commission been adopted and if so are we now better equipped to contend with this sort of threat?

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

There’s a real dichotomy here, Frank. You know the Department of Defense takes the EMP threat seriously. Even the Obama Administration spent nearly a billion dollars further hardening headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain and other commanding patrol links against the possibility of a nuclear EMP threat from North Korea. But when it comes to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, those organizations responsible for protecting the electric grid and our civilian critical infrastructures, they act as though EMP is merely a theoretical threat, that it isn’t proven, that we need to do more studies on it to see whether it’s a threat; as if all that data with over 50 years of experience testing, from the Department of Defense doesn’t exist. In part, the DoD is to be blamed for this because Dr. Graham, the Chairman of the Commission has criticized them yesterday for sitting on and keeping classified a lot of the data on EMP. But there should be no excuse to apply a little common sense from the Department of Homeland security, because they can know just from newspaper report that the Department of Defense does harden systems against EMP. They know it’s a real threat, we wouldn’t be spending billions of dollars on EMP protection of our military system if it wasn’t a real threat

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Peter, you’ve mentioned that particularly there is a present danger from North Korea. You and often times your colleague and my good friend Jim Woolsey have been writing about the capabilities the North Koreans may have not just to lobby nuclear weapon over our country via ballistic missile, but perhaps to use satellites too of which they have orbiting the earth as we speak to unleash this kind of Electro-Magnetic devastation of our country. Talk quickly about the danger you and the commission have been particularly seized with from that country.

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

Yeah, we are very concerned. More concerned with the satellite threat than we are with North Koreans possession of intercontinental ballistic missiles. You know the satelittes are currently in orbit, they could two of them, the KMS2 and the KMS3, that are orbiting on an optimum trajectory to evade our national missile defenses coming up from the south and put an EMP field over North America if they were nuclear-armed. We don’t know if they’re nuclear-armed or not but it’s strange they are on that particular trajectory. A trajectory the Soviet Union had planned during the Cold War to make a surprise nuclear EMP attack and at the right altitude for doing that and at the right trajectory for doing that. And we know the North Koreans know about EMP they incorporate it into their war plans. It’s really the only way for them to possibly win a war with the United States through an EMP attack because if they were to blast a city or something like that we would turn them into a plate of glass. But EMP, we might not even though they did it if they did it by satellite you know because one of the first things it does is take out the radars and our other national technical means for ascertaining, well where did that blast come from?

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Including satellites.

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

Yeah, and there are hundreds of satellites in lower orbit you know.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Peter Pry, let me just ask you specifically on this question of what the commission has learned about collaboration between the old Soviet Union’s weaponries and those that are now building those types of threats you talk about in North Korea. This is as they say in the old Soviet Union “No accident comrade,” is that right?

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

That’s absolutely right. In 2004 the commission was informed by two Russian generals and EMP experts, a couple of their top EMP experts to warn us, supposedly the visit was for a friendly warning that the design information for a super EMP nuclear weapon had accidentaly leaked from Russia to North Korea and that there are Russian scientists working on the North Korean nuclear and missile programs. But it wasn’t because the Russian government wanted them to, it was because it was brain drain because the economy was bad and they had to find work somewhere.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Another accident, it seems unlikely. Peter against this backdrop where there is clearly a great and growing danger to this country from a threat that you and your colleges led by Dr. William Graham have been warning of for almost 2 decades, the commission is being dismantled. This is simply unimaginable to me, there’s talk about having a new one created that will be like all the other politically developed commissioned to presumably come up with political judgements rather than technical ones. I have been championing, as I think you have, the idea of having President Trump create this commission as a Presidential Commission. Talk very quickly if you would about the need for doing that.

DR. PETER VINCENT PRY:

I think it’s a vital need for there to be an executive level, something in the White House close to the President, because the problem is big it cuts across all of the critical infrastructures including military and there’s no single department of agency that can manage it. It’s an executive level White house kind of a job. And indeed, President Reagan understood that, because he had originally set up in the White House something called the National Communications System which was to harden across all government communications for federal and executive levels. This would basically be the same thing, bring back what Ronald Reagan had originally envisioned which by the way was canceled by President Obama by executive order.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Surprise, surprise. Part of the wrecking operation. Peter Pry, I just want to say personally and I think on behalf of certainly our audience and many others besides, thank you to you and to your colleagues on the EMP commission for your service. I hope it will continue but I want you to know that your leadership, your clarity about this threat and all you have striven to do to enable us to defend ourselves against it is of the utmost importance. I hope you keep it up and I hope you come back to us to talk about it more in the near future. Next up Peter Huessy joins us we will talk about regime change in North Korea, whether that may be the answer in part to the threat we are now facing from that quarter. That and more straight ahead.


14 posted on 11/09/2017 9:30:55 AM PST by MarchonDC09122009 (When is our next march on DC? When have we had enough?)
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To: MarchonDC09122009

What happened to the previously announced ‘ex grid’ exercise on Nov. 04 - 06???


15 posted on 11/09/2017 9:34:37 AM PST by Terry L Smith
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To: ebshumidors

Tv series Jericho was well done.


16 posted on 11/09/2017 9:43:21 AM PST by TigerClaws
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Thanks for that.


17 posted on 11/09/2017 9:43:35 AM PST by Obadiah
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To: MarchonDC09122009

Do we get tto know what they learned from that?


18 posted on 11/09/2017 9:46:46 AM PST by Bethaneidh
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To: SaveFerris

Just chill a few days.


19 posted on 11/09/2017 9:47:42 AM PST by Bethaneidh
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To: MarchonDC09122009

At one time long ago, I believed these military / multi-agency FTXs were a good thing.

Now, not so much.

5.56mm


20 posted on 11/09/2017 9:54:42 AM PST by M Kehoe
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