- Demonstrate industry response to a simulated coordinated physical and cyber attack that damages the Bulk-Power System and causes widespread outages followed by partial restoration and rotating blackouts lasting weeks or months . Participants will have the opportunity to review and exercise their security and crisis response plans.

“The goal of the November 14, 2013, GridEx II Executive Tabletop discussion is to examine policy-level issues and decisions required to manage the impact of a severe emergency event. The objectives of the Executive Tabletop are to:

According to their own documents, “ GridEx 2013 is a North American Wide Distributed Play Exercise” The first exercise was performed in November 2011 .

These dates also coincide with another first time ever joint humanitarian/disaster relief exercise with the U.S. Army and the Communist Peoples Republic of China Army. This exercise will involve actual boots on the ground disaster relief exercises in Hawaii. U.S. Army Pacific said the two countries will practice providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country during the Nov. 12-14 exercise.

By now, it is assumed that most Americans know there is a security exercise to be performed on the power grid and will take place this week called GridEx II / GridSecCon . This exercise involves the cooperation of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Simulations of physical and cyber attacks on the power grid could occur during this exercise.

The most important article you will read about GridEx II. How far will they go with national preparedness to predict the next catastrophe scenario… for our safety?

The GridEx II Executive Tabletop will simulate a severe emergency caused by a high-impact, low frequency (HILF) event aka a successful coordinated physical and cyber attack . This will prompt the need for timely policy-level decisions, which includes:

These 10 facilitators will provide the injects , moderate the discussions, and industry response for the two days of training.

An additional 10 assistant secretary level players of government agencies will also participate including DOE, DHS, DOD, FEMA, FBI, and others . These players are selected by the Government Coordinating Council.

There are approximately 10 CEO’s from the industry including: electricity industry executives, e.g., chief executive officers, general managers, or chief operating officers. All participants will be selected by the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC).

Lead Planners (LP) will determine and notify independent employees aka players and will need to participate in the GridEx II exercise. They will also assign the internal controllers and evaluators to conduct the drills. Lead Planner will also be responsible for periodically calling the SPP Conference Bridge to report the organization’s responses to the exercise.

The GridEx II Communications paths are shown below. As you can see, it illustrates the major communications pathway which will take place during the exercise involving the NERC crisis action teams .

There are a number of organizations participating nationwide in the GridEx II power grid drill. The following map shows the toal registered organizations to participate. It is unclear whether this list is the most up-to-date.

Approximately, 49+ other organizations will monitor and respond and only exercise the scenarios which are internal. They will gather the personnel and act as an internal table top for the exercise.

102 Full Player Organizations are involved. According to the documentation, each participant/organization will be assigned a Lead Planner (LP) who will have a role in shaping the scenario and or event. Full players have participated in the planning conferences, will respond to all exercise activities, and copy or report their responses to NERC and BAH aka Booz Allen Hamilton (yes, the same group that Edward Snowden worked for…).

Once the GridEx II exercises are performed, an Executive Table Top will examine the policy-level decisions between the industry and government, which is required to manage the impacts of a severe emergency to Bulk Power System reliability.

What input will the government have regarding the electricity industry’s restoration priorities to customers, particularly other critical infrastructures, and how might these change through a prolonged outage?

What input will the government have regarding the electricity industry’s restoration priorities to customers, particularly other critical infrastructures, and how might these change through a prolonged outage?

Will the site of a suspected terrorist attack be treated as a crime scene and how might this affect the industry’s ability to restore the electricity service?

Will the site of a suspected terrorist attack be treated as a crime scene and how might this affect the industry’s ability to restore the electricity service?

How will initial situation assessments be made and how will they be shared with industry executives and senior government officials?

How will initial situation assessments be made and how will they be shared with industry executives and senior government officials?

GridSecCon – ExCon (Exercise Control) - Herndon, VA

The GridEx II Task Force

There will be regional plays. An example would be Southwest Power Pool (SPP) GridEx II Task Force. During the exercise, SPP will have open conference calls during the exercise to catch similarities in SPP members responses and to find ways to integrate and coordinate regional responses for next time. (Predictive Programming for the next exercise?)

Map via Wikipedia

CONCLUSION

Across the internet, media of all types have been ramping up the concerns for the GridEx II 2013 Power Grid attack exercise. There are also rumors floating around as to the real reasoning behind the drill. Researchers across the internet, forums, and blogs have speculated the exercise is to get ready for preperations for a major power grid failure. This failure could be caused by a natural or man-made catastrophe, cyber attack, Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMT), or false-flag event. These speculations range from EMT’s and Comet ISON coming, terrorist attacks on American infrastructure, and war. Other reasons have been speculated but those listed above are by far the most common.

DHS, the CIA, FEMA, and others have endlessly instilled fear into the Americans the terrorist bad guys are coming and ‘could’ destroy the power grid, which would cripple the infrastructure. Fear sets in when one thinks about this possible scenario, which would leave many Americans without food, water, and power. The fear tactics left behind resemble the usual 101 business class of the problem-reaction-solution model scenarios… a never ending cycle of ‘Get Ready’ the bad guys are coming and the ‘OMG, we must be afraid and prepare for the never ending unknown Act of God’ program…

Even former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned “a major cyber attack is looming” as reported by Reuters earlier this year. Napolitano also said,

“A cyber 9/11" could happen "imminently" and that critical infrastructure - including water, electricity and gas - was very vulnerable to such a strike. "We shouldn't wait until there is a 9/11 in the cyber world. There are things we can and should be doing right now that, if not prevent, would mitigate the extent of damage," said Napolitano, speaking at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington and referring to the September 11, 2001, attacks.”

As you can see, these agencies and others cannot survive without some sort of ‘threat’ coming in the near future. Every since 9/11, it appears everything in government literature has to do with some sort of threat and a way to practive neutralizing the threat. Whetherit is the worst flu season ever, worst storms ever, terrorist attacks, cyber attacks, the lone gunman on the loose, the threat of earthquakes, comets or asteroids coming, the inevitable doomsday scenario plays out in these disaster preparing and authoritarian agencies which seem to mysteriously coincide with Hollywood doomsday movies and many disaster preparedness articles, publications, and expanding polices and procedures.

This GridEx II is obviously a two-fold drill. It serves the purpose of preparedness in case of a cyber attack on the infrastructure, but it also has a downfall which is the dollar amount spent in these types of exercises. It is appearant these drills are just to keep these governmental agencies and contractors in business! That is what all these practive drills have become – a business…

What if I told you that in order for these participants to continue doing business, the government has made it mandatory regulations include ‘disaster preparedness’ manuals and policies and procedures in order to keep their license to do business? What if I told you these agencies have to continue their regurgitation of fear and predictive catastrophe programming in order to make their fiscal paychecks?

What if I told you these national preparedness drills, whether they are the active-shooters, the cyber attack terrorists, the new strain of deadly flu scenario, the next shake-down earthquake, the next economic collapse, the next artificial police chase, the next typhoon, or next power grid failure are all set-up for your entertainment to keep the public/private employees in these fields up-to-date on their national preparedness scorecards so they can renew their industry practitioner’s license…

go ahead and think about it…

Is this really just about money, control, and power? It appears the federal government is now in a position that dictates to the states, corporations, and individuals who needs to participate in these ‘doomsday’ scenario disaster preparednes drills in order to be worthy of renewing their industry license…

Interestingly enough… we must present the concept of the ‘super-soldier’ when debating this reasoning for predictive catastrophe planning and disaster preparedness training. It is just that… training. These agencies have to have some sort of new ‘threat’ in order to carry out their war games or problem-reaction-solution scenarios. Military and militarized humanitarian organizations have cashed in on these disaster planning and doomsday war game scenarios so the new and improved ‘super-solders’ can continually feed the need to be praised by authoritarians and feel as though they are compassionate and life saving heroes… Is this an example of Obama's new Citizen Army of nationally prepared worker bees?

It never ends, and now, it is a specialized degree. Without disaster preparedness and super-solder hero training aka EMS training… how will these people majoring in these fields across campuses ever survive? As long as there is a ‘predictive threat’ there will be the need to employ those that can diffuse it.

Every police officer, sheriff, deputy, EMS worker, fire fighter, medical staff worker, city worker, and others at one point or another will have to prepare for the inevitable disaster preparedness exercise. It is all about identifying, reacting and defusing the threat… Special Medical Operations. This is to appease the insurance companies and non-profits to lower the cost of doing business. We must have plastic playgrounds at school so the children have fewer injuries. We must have gun free zones to give the Victim Right's players the illusion you will be safe from the lone gunman. We must have disaster preparedness training so we can monitor, evaluate, find the means, ratios, and percentages to predict the next perceived threat…

Are you seeing the bigger picture yet?

Someone needs to ask the hard questions. Are you ready to fall away from the fake paradigm we must live every day of our lives with the predictive programming of a new ‘threat’ coming? Does it not seem to you these 'perceived' threats are never ending? Always moved back to the next month...etc?

Where is this money coming from to keep these disaster preparedness training plans in business? From the American Taxpayer? Why is the IRS a d v i s i n g of a Power Outage Ahead of Grid Ex Electricity Drill: “This service will be unavailable” ??

Take for example the US Army/China disaster preparedness humanitarian drill taking place in Hawaii at the same time as the GridEx II exercise this week. According to numerous reports, the biggest ever typhoon has just struck the Philippines . Over 10,000 people are predicted to be dead as of today? If this is really the case then why is China still parked in Hawaii? If they are really here on American soil, with boots on the ground for a humanitarian exercise, then should they reschedule the 'drill' and go do the ‘real-deal’ in the Philippines…?

As you ponder those questions… Other drills within a month time frame resemble the same characteristics…

Are we going to lose power? I guess that depends on the problem, reaction, solution... Yes?

08NOV2013: Communist Peoples Republic of China Army wandering about Hawaii Nov 12th

07NOV2013: Salvation Army and Military to Conduct WMD Joint Disaster Exercise

06NOV2013: More Concerns as Military Destroys Parks with Drills in NM

06NOV2013: Emergency response exercises held across Maine

04Nov2013: Police profiling specific cars for searches in GA

04Nov2013: Foreign SWATS and 35 other teams joined to play shoot-em-up for our safety

31OCT2013: US Army and China disaster relief exercise in Hawaii same time as GridEx II / GridSecCon

21OCT2013: Alert: FBI Investigating Threats to Midwest Water Supply Systems: “On High Alert”

21OCT2013: Active shooter exercises prepare Academy Airmen, cadets for potential threats

17OCT2013: ARIZONA – WEAPONS TACTICAL SIMULATION TRAINING W/ACTORS

17OCT2013: MD Military Drill- Gunfire and Explosions alarm Bowie residents

10OCT2013: FS-ISAC CAPP Exercise for Financial Institutions

08OCT2013: US Cyber Command’s Plan X: Pentagon Launching Covert Cyber Attacks

07OCT2013: Operation Urban Shield 2013 – Oct 25-28th

Plus... China here before? Dropping off Troops?

08SEPT2013: US-Chinese Joint Military Exercises to begin at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

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*this article was updated and corrections were made since the original posting .

Sources

http://thegovernmentrag.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/us-canada-mexico-emergency-

drill-in-nov-to-simulate-physical-and-cyberattacks-on-power-grid/

http://thegovernmentrag.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/communist-peoples-republic-of-

china-army-wandering-about-hawaii-nov-12th/

http://www.nerc.com/files/NERC_GridEx_AAR_16Mar2012_Final.pdf

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/UnitedStatesPowerGrid.jpg

http://www.spp.org/publications/Chris%20-%20GridEx%20update%20for%20SPP%20Conf.pdf

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/24/us-usa-cyber-threat-idUSBRE90N1A320130124

http://www.infowars.com/government-to-run-cyberattack-drill-in-november/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-typhoon-philippines-20131110 ,0,3220526.story

http://www.thedailysheeple.com/irs-advises-of-power-outage-ahead-of-grid-ex-electricity-