Catastrophic blackout: Douglas County prepares for solar storm

Courtesy NASA

CASTLE ROCK – As a powerful solar storm lit up the sky, the western half of the country, including Colorado, plunged into darkness. Solar flares disrupted communications, supplies of food and gas ran low and people began to riot and loot stores.

Emergency Ops Center

Inside two command centers, officials frantically worked to regain control. It was ‘Operation Lights Out,’ an exercise to practice a large-scale disaster in Douglas County while also protecting first responders, sheltering travelers and keeping residents safe.

“We have some tough decisions to make,” shouted Jill Repella, Douglas County Commissioner to the policy group. “Are we going to use our remaining fuel for the hospitals or for police vehicles? 100 people could die.”

Capt. McMahan

Spurlock and Repella

Throughout the all-day drill June 15^th, controllers threw new hurdles at the players: major highways closed, hundreds committing crimes, armed militias patrolling the streets. Emergency operations manager Bureau Chief Holly Nicholson-Kluth jumped them all with few problems. That’s because she had a team of pros to help.

Undersheriff Tony Spurlock, Castle Rock Police Chief Jack Cauley, county commissioners and administrators from Lone Tree, Tri County Health, Parker, Larkspur, Castle Pines, Urban Drainage and Highlands Ranch Metro District took part in the operation.  Since the scenario included cell phone service overloaded and shut down, much of the communication was done with the Amateur Radio Emergency Services of Douglas and Elbert counties. 

Castle Rock Chief Cauley

They played the game like it was real, because it could be within two years. A powerful sun storm is hitting Earth today, according to NASA. While there have been few effects, a larger one would end the world as we know it.

The largest solar storm happened in 1859 during a solar maximum about the same size of the one the earth is in today, according to NASA.  That storm was named the Carrington Event after British astronomer Richard Carrington, who was the first to connect the activity on the sun with geomagnetic disturbances on earth. Back then, there were few disruptions.  But today's predictions are dire.

In this month’s National Geographic Magazine, reporter Timothy Ferris writes, “A Carrington-class storm could fry more transformers than the power companies keep stockpiled, leaving millions without light, potable water, sewage treatment, heating, air-conditioning, fuel, telephone service, or perishable food and medications during the months it would take to manufacture and install new transformers.”

911 Operators

A recent National Academy of Sciences report estimates that such a storm could wreak the economic disruption of 20 Katrina-class hurricanes, costing one to two trillion dollars in the first year alone and taking a decade to recover from, reports Ferris.

Smaller solar storms have been known to affect power and communications.

On March 13, 1989, when a solar storm hit Quebec that was one third less powerful than Carrington, it knocked out the power grid serving more than six million customers in less than two minutes’ time, according to NASA.

Also, the "Halloween storms" of 2003 interfered with satellite communications, produced a brief power outage in Sweden, and lighted up the skies with ghostly auroras as far south as Florida and Texas.

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