Wisconsin National Guard Plan Power-Grid Collapse Drill

According to the Wisconsin National Guard Public Affairs Office, a two-day military drill will take place in Columbia County and at Wisconsin’s Emergency Operation Center in Madison simulating a total power grid collapse on November 15-16.

As the press release states “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 drilling region.

The drill is in conjunction with a national-level exercise, known as GridEx, which is an exercise to simulate a cyber/physical attack on electric and other critical infrastructures across North America. Wisconsin’s drill will involve county and state law enforcements and first responders, including the Wisconsin National Guard.

Maj. Gen. Don Dunbar, Wisconsin’s adjutant general said “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. 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.”

The article describes how Wisconsin is preparing for a total grid collapse and warns the preparation has already started. In addition, the report gives timing of the next major ‘full-scale’ drill expected in spring 2018 coined “Dark Sky”.

Here is the list of participants who will be drilling on Nov 15-16 in Wisconsin:

• State Emergency Operations Center
• Business Emergency Operations Center
• Utilities and transmission providers
• 65 Soldiers from the National Guard Reaction Force
• FBI
• FEMA Region V
• other Federal agencies

In July, we warned about the US government quietly preparing for a total grid collapse with the passage of an Executive Order – “Coordinating Efforts to Prepare the Nation for Space Weather Events”.

Here is snippet of section 1 of the executive order:

Space weather events, in the form of solar flares, solar energetic particles, and geomagnetic disturbances, occur regularly, some with measurable effects on critical infrastructure systems and technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), satellite operations and communication, aviation, and the electrical power grid.

Extreme space weather events — those that could significantly degrade critical infrastructure — could disable large portions of the electrical power grid, resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as water supply, healthcare, and transportation. Space weather has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents. Successfully preparing for space weather events is an all-of-nation endeavor that requires partnerships across governments, emergency managers, academia, the media, the insurance industry, non-profits, and the private sector.

Just days ago, the Department of Defense wrapped up a national drill from November 04-06 simulating a total grid collapse across the United States.

The bottom line: The United States government is quietly preparing for a major power grid collapse. At this point there are many conflicting sources of what could cause such of an event, such as aging infrastructure, cyber or physical attack, EMP, and or a geomagnetic storm. As a citizen, you’re not allowed to know this knowledge and frankly you will not be prepared- only the government will be. The writing is on the wall, as the government continues to drill for the big day, coined in the report: “Dark Sky”.