Muscatine Co and Iowa ARES to participate in Operation: BLACK SWAN 2017

From: Iowa ARES SEC:

I pleased to let you know that the Iowa ARES Section is partnering with the Ohio ARES Section in their Black Swan operation: “BLACK SWAN 2017” is a multi-state radio communications exercise (COMEX) to test the ability for volunteer, non-government organization (NGO), and government agencies to communicate across services in emergency conditions through amateur radio. The Ohio Section of ARRL is coordinating the exercise and will use it as the Ohio Section SET for the year 2017, providing background and superstructure for more complete exercise play, coordinated across county, district, and section boundaries. The Ohio Section will publish templates for participating organizations, including an Exercise Plan (EXPLAN) that implements local operations as part of the larger exercise.

This is an opportunity for many of us to get in our SET (Simulated Emergency Test) for this year--which I know will put a smile on our SM's face.

The EXPLAN (Exercise Plan) will become available on 1 September 2017. I'll try to let you know as soon as this document becomes available. You can use it to build own operation plan around the exercise scenario. BTW: it is WX related and similar to an actual event that took place several years back when a significant derecho moved through portions of the mid-west all the way to the east coast. The Black Swan Concept of Operation document is available on-line at:

https://sites.google.com/…/blacks…/2017/concept-of-operation

The plan current calls for the primary activity to take place on October 7th and 8th. I know this is something of a compressed time-line, but I think with a little creative thinking we, in the Iowa Section, can come up with some pretty good local activities that'd dove-tail into the plan quite well.

UPDATE:

Here is a URL with additional info (FAQ) on Black Swan: https://sites.google.com/view/blackswan/2017/faq Hopefully this will assist you in planning around this exercise. The Exercise Plan (EXPLAN) should become available on/about 1 September 2017. I'll try to have that out to you as soon as it becomes available.

UPDATE:

The MARS folks have let me know that there will be a MARS exercise in early October in addition to the Black Swan 17 COMEX. MARS part will be from Friday Night October 6th to Saturday night October 7th. More details, etc, on the MARS exercise to come a bit later on. 73, Rich Bingham, WW0Q ARES Iowa Section Emergency Coordinator E-Mail: ww0q@arrl.net