***********THIS IS AN EXERCISE************

NC ARES 2010 Simulated Emergency Test

November 13, 2010

0900 – 1100 HRS EST

Tom Brown N4TAB NC SEC

Steve Misel K4WEB ASEC Central Branch

 

Overview.  This SET will encompass wide-area infrastructure failures from rumored but unconfirmed activities.  The SET will begin at 0900 HRS and conclude at 1100 HRS.  The “Exercise” times will be 0500 -0900 HRS.  That means that STARTEX will simulate 0500 and the event will proceed at a 2:1 compressed rate.  See Table 1 below for the temporal relationship.

 

ACTUAL TIME-EST

EXERCISE TIME-EST

0900 HRS EST

0500 HRS EST

0930 HRS EST

0600 HRS EST

1000 HRS EST

 

0700 HRS EST

1030 HRS EST

0800 HRS EST

1100 HRS EST

0900 HRS EST

TABLE 1

 

Activities.  During the Exercise, individual county ARES groups will establish communications among themselves for coordination and administration of their activities and establish communications with the Tar Heel Emergency Net on 3923 KHz or 3927 Khz (depending on frequency availability.  It is important that the county liaison station maintain a constant watch on the THEN for instructions and Injects into the Exercise.  Note:  Liaison stations are expected to remain on-frequency for the duration of the Exercise, unless they request and are granted a temporary leave-of-absence.  There is no need or desire for general check-in/check out activity.

 

Event conditions/scenarios will be assigned on a DPR-by-DPR basis. Several DPRs may simultaneously have similar scenarios and not necessarily according to adjacent regions; i.e. DPR 1 and DPR 9 may have the exact same scenario, though they are separated by 400+ miles. See TABLE 2 and TABLE 3.

 

Scenarios. Overall there will be several scenarios in play:

 

Scenario 1

Statewide, involving major infrastructure problems

Scenario 2

Per-DPR, limited to minor infrastructure involvement

Scenario 3

Per DPR, encompassing major infrastructure involvement

TABLE 2

 

Conditions.  Any or all of the Scenarios may include any or all of these conditions

 

Condition A

No reported problems

Condition B

AC Mains power out, total blackout

Condition C

AC Mains power intermittent with widespread outages

Condition D

INTERNET and Email out, total unavailability

Condition E

INTERNET and Email intermittent, slow, barely responsive

Condition F

Wired telephone service out, 911 service compromised

Condition G

Wired telephone service intermittent, slow, inconsistent

Condition H

Cellphone service out

Condition J

Cellphone service service intermittent, slow, inconsistent

Condition K

NC 800 MHZ VIPER system impaired in some areas

Condition L

NC 800 MHZ VIPER system impaired in some areas, wide-area talk groups not functional and numerous sites operating as “site trunking”

 

 

Note that there are significant implications associated with each of the Conditions and the presence of 2 or more conditions may severely impact response by agencies, as well as ARES.  For example, Condition D means ATMs don't work and credit card terminals don't work, so gasoline must be purchased with cash. Add condition B and there is no gasoline availability, period.

 

With Conditions B, D, F and H simultaneously in-play, Amateur Radio is the only mechanism available to many agencies for comms support. Add-in Conditions K or L and Amateur Radio becomes the only useful comms mechanism.

 

Traffic.  Any traffic sent by a county to any recipient within the SET exercise will be in ICS-213 format.  If you have HF Winlink capability (Pactor III or Winmor/RMS Express), you may send it directly.  Otherwise, you must call into the THEN and list your traffic,  A designated traffic station will pick-up your traffic and send it via Winlink.

 

Winlink Addresses for this Exercise:

WBRCC: aan4emg@winlink.org

Central Branch RCC: aan4za-4@winlink.org

Eastern Branch RCC: aan4emb@winlink,org

State EOC: aan4emg@winlink.org

NC ARES SEC: aan4emg@winlink.org

NC SM: n2cop@arrl.org

 

NOTE: ALL TRAFFIC MUST INCLUDE THE PHRASE: “THIS IS AN EXERCISE”.

 

 

 

WebEOC. A specific NCEM WebEOC event has been created for this event at ncsparta.net.  Those who have had WebEOC training and have a password should log-in and participate.  The Incident process will resemble a conventional Exercise.

 

The SET-specific Incident is: SET20101113 .

 

Local Radio Communications.  ALL Radio communications MUST INCLUDE the PHRASE:

“THIS IS AN EXERCISE”.

 

It is up to the EC to specify the local comms plan and to be sure that any chosen pathways are coincident with the scenario.  For example, if a particular repeater does not have back-up power and a power outage is declared within your local conditions, you may not use that repeater until power is restored.

 

Boots on the ground.  At least one ARES operator will have to deploy a short distance to a specific point within the local city/county region and to (near) a particular place.  This will be specified via an Inject on the THEN.

 

NIMS/ICS qualified operators.  Be mindful that certain Incidents may require that the EC only send NIMS/ICS qualified operators to a particular Incident point-of-presence, such a Command Post, Staging Point, etc..  If you need a quick reference for currently listed NIMS/ICS qualified NC ARES operators, you can get a quick list here:

 http://www.nc-ares.org/cgi-bin/memberlist.cgi . Note this list contains callsigns only and is in

PDF format, suitable for direct printing. It is available to anyone (ie no login required)