Franklin County to take part in Statewide Geomagnetic Storm exercise

Pamela Brownell

28 Airport Road

Apalachicola, Florida 32320

(850) 653-8977, Fax (850) 653-3643

Em3frank@Fairpoint.net

 

January 26, 2012

To County Stakeholders:

The Franklin County Emergency Management would like to invite you to take part in a local planning process for the state exercise.

The State of Florida is in the process of planning a Statewide Geomagnetic Storm exercise. The scenario will be a geomagnetic storm significant enough to take out the entire Florida and for that matter the entire southeastern U.S. Power grid. This could be for an extended period of time as much as 30 days. A geomagnetic storm severe enough to affect Florida would also affect the entire North American continent. This would limit our ability to reach out for assistance to other states and limit the resources available through our Federal partners. February 13^th and 27^th 2012 there will be a webinar at 10:00am here at the EOC to educate us on what a geomagnetic storm is a how it might affect us. March 13, 2012 there will be a four-hour exercise conducted here at the EOC. This exercise will allow local stakeholder to develop some response options and plans. The state will give us injects and we will work together to come up with some kind of response. I know we all think this could never happen, but if you listen to the news there have been several storms already. The main reason for this exercise is to come up with a plan for a long period of no power and communications.

Please plan on attending both sessions I feel you will be surprised at what you will learn. Please e-mail me with a response so I can set up the training room appropriately.

Sincerely,

Pamela  Brownell

Pamela Brownell

Franklin County Emergency Management

Director

http://www.oysterradio.com e-mail manager@oysterradio.com with comments