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| 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.
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| 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.”
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| Capt. McMahan |
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| 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.
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| 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.”
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| 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.
It was a tribute to Douglas County Sheriff David Weaver and
his deputies for supporting and protecting the soldiers’ homes and families in 
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