Mayor John Vieau, Police Chief Patrick Major and Colonel Greg Buchanan talk before the EMP tabletop exercise.
Reminder Publishing photo by Tyler Garnet
CHICOPEE — Many department heads and representatives from different participating agencies took part in Chicopee’s Local Emergency Planning Committee Electromagnetic Pulse Tabletop Exercise to prepare for a potential electromagnetic pulse event.
The three-hour discussion and exercise was designed to identify the city of Chicopee and Westover Air Base needs and participant roles in responding and managing response actions and policy during a catastrophic widespread power outage.
The joint exercise was the first of its kind and some things it was aimed to identify were the local impact of extended grid, regional collaboration solutions to minimize impact from an EMP incident on the region, critical infrastructure, share information with local jurisdictions and utilities to harden their grid from EMP and other threats, potential technologies that may be able to be implemented to help mitigate the situation and identify what plans are in place for such an event and options for improvement.
Colonel Greg Buchanan, 439th Airlift Wing, explained how important this exercise for everyone to take part in.
He said, “We’re one of the first to do this. I believe San Antonio has done it as well. There is interest in the Pentagon regarding this exercise. A lot of other entities are also going to come in as we collectively look at this problem. One thing I can tell you from a military perspective, our strengths come from the community, not just the people but also the utilities and services that your community and our community provides. This exercise is absolutely critical as were looking at the future not just from natural disasters but also our adversaries as well. We’re expecting in a future war fight, hopefully it never comes to that, but it will be a contested deployment.”
Participants were given a situation manual with a prompt and the exercise utilized a dual-tracked discussion utilizing two separate breakout discussion groups.
An electromagnetic pulse attack is a high-level pulse that could come naturally or from a nuclear weapon. It fries all the electrical systems around it like communication or power systems.
The module example provided a prompt that proposed the power has gone out across most of the nation with the western states being spared from the outage. There is no radio or television stations, internet or cable service is available in the New England region. Some cellphones are still powered on, there are not operational networks to all communications. Landline phones are down, most cars are out of service, stalled vehicles have gridlocked populated areas, low water pressure, failing water systems, the state of refrigerated and nonperishable foods, fuel and financial systems being down forcing exchange to be cash or barter only.
Group A’s focus was on how the region will fare without protection and group B was tasked with identifying what critical resources and planning steps they feel will most benefit the region to survive this incident.
Group A responded to the exercise scenario with existing capabilities and resources, highlighting the challenges that would be aced from EMP effects.
Group B responded to the same exercise scenario but were provided additional technology or resources, such as an EMP hardened microgrid or other preparations which would allow the region to continue providing limited required services to the public.
The goal was to discuss and develop an understanding of participating agencies’ roles and responsibilities associated with support or response to a disaster within the region.
Mayor John Vieau took the time to talk about the exercise and partnership with Westover Air Base.
He said “Chicopee and Westover want to make sure that we’re prepared, being proactive. We’re here to make sure that our systems are secured and hardened and capable of withstanding certain, you want to call them attack, you want to call the natural disasters, we want to be prepared. That is today’s mission. To collaborate, talk at roundtables and come up with some solutions. Look at opportunities, look at grants and come up with really creative ways to protect the people who live in Chicopee, the Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts and the entire country.”
Buchanan said there was a major general scheduled to listen to the exercise along with representatives from Homeland Security.
Terry Boston was the former CEO of PJM Interconnection, the largest PowerGrid in North America and has served three presidents on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council since 2017.
He shared his thoughts on the potential threat of an EMP attack and potential solutions.
“It is very scary to think about what will happen if we have an existential threat such as an EMP attack on the grid. The loss of life potential there is huge. Part of the solution is hardened microgrids and we must tackle both the leadership, the enthusiasm and the power electronics that’s been added to the grid on how we harden that. We’ve known about this problem since 1962,” Boston said.
In 1962, the United States conducted a high-altitude nuclear test that was the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space and one of five conducted by the United States in space.
Although Boston said they knew about this threat, he said it was scary for many after hearing the first EMP emission report in 2004.
He explained, “We have installed tens of millions of devices back then, the system was electromechanical, we’ve installed tens of millions electronic controls and relays since then, so we are more vulnerable today perhaps than we were back then. Back then after the report, Richard Lawson, a general with the Air Force, stood at parade rest during the entire presentation. When asked at the end of the presentation if he had any to add, he said no sir I’m just here to make you take this as seriously and we have not taken it as seriously as we need to. Today we’ve mostly talked about the threat as opposed to the exercise taking place today.”
Boston applauded Chicopee for being proactive by taking part in this exercise.
