34 Department of Homeland Security, Operations room 1, Washington DC November 18, 1315 Hrs (1715Z)

Department of Homeland Security, Operations room 1, Washington DC November 18, 1315 Hrs (1715Z)

Rachel was going over her notes. The potential threat had been deemed credible and because it targeted infrastructure it was also deemed critical. She already knew that on the call there were going to be people from the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, The Tennessee Office of Emergency Management, the Iowa Emergency Management Agency, the Nebraska Department of Emergency Management, the oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, the Washington Emergency Management Agency, and the California Office Of Emergency Management ||Check names on these...||. She didn't think the initial memo had been circulated too far outside of the initial agencies. It could spread, but as far as they could tell the intended targets were in these states. The states around the states with known possible targets were also put on alert, but not to the same level as the states that they didn't have hard data for. She suspected it would grow before the day was over. The call would be video on her end, but probably audio only on the return side. This was not a call she looked forward to making, but this was the line of business they worked in. They would do what it took to protect the lives and property of the citizens of the United States. Most of the civilian citizens had no idea the kind of threats that the Department had stopped that they never heard about. Confident that she now had her facts in order, she took a stroll down to the conference room that was off of Ops Room 1. When she had gotten settled, she heard a knock on the door. She turned to look and saw Joe standing there. "We have confirmed photos from the Coulee Dam and a near by power switching yard as well as a few power plants ||find names for these|| in the Seattle area. I think you said that you had Washington State EMA on this call as well. Primary method appears to be targeting the transmission towers." Joe said. "We don't think they are going to go for the dams themselves..." "Thanks Joe," Rachel said. She took a breath and dialed the number for the conference call. She told the system that she was the event organizer and then just sat quietly in the room as she waited for the various EOC's to call into the system. When she had sent her memo out to the various EMAs she had requested that the section and branch chiefs would be in the meeting too, and she hoped that everyone had called in ESF 12 and ESF 13. There was a quiet ping as someone joined the call. "This Zoe Daniels with the Washington State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management I'm here with my section and branch chiefs." Zoe's voice came through the speakers. Part way through Zoe's announcement, there was another quiet ping. "Anthony Popovich, Ohio EMA. I'm got the same group of people that Ms Daniels does from Washington." The queit pings continued until everyone that had received the memo and a few that had been forwarded the memo were on the call. "okay, I'm going to end up forwarding some of you some information via a secure portal. We don't know the extent of what we're facing, but we do know that there are possible targets in Ohio, Washington, Iowa, oklahoma and Texas for sure. There is a group that calls themselves 'The Dawn Patrol' that is apparently planning to attack critical infrastructure in these states. A week ago we found the website they were using for communication and scraped it. I won't go into the details of how we did that, but suffice to say there is a lot of evidence there." Rachel paused and looked at her notes. "I'm going to start with individual states, some of the possible targets will be common." "The common elements appear to possibly be taking down transmission towers. Now the caveat is that they are spread too far apart and there's too many of them to watch. So ESF 12, please work with your energy suppliers to help us watch the towers.." "In Ohio. There are pictures of the Bessie Davis, Perry, and Kyger Creek nuclear power plants. We don't know if the photos were to just get details on where things were, or if they are planning to target the plants themselves, but there are photos of them in there. Notable transmission lines are across the Hoover Resivor in Columbus and random power stations around the state. We're trying to pinpoint details, but it's slow going." "Washington State, It's similar Coulee Dam and related power infrastructure in the area. They managed to get a car up to the Power Switching Yard and get a good look up there... as well as a few other power plants that we've not identified." "Iowa, oklahoma and Texas. Wind farms and transmission towers appear to be the targets. We can't give you any more details than that because all the wind farms look similar and they are using a camera that isn't geo tagging the images so we can't do that, either." "In Tennessee and Kentucky, targets appear to be similar ot Washington State, but we haven't been able to pinpoint any locations yet." Rachel paused. "Anyone have any questions so far?" She was met with silence so she figured that everyone was either too stunned to ask or everyone understood the severity of the issue. "Everyone has my number and the number of our operations desk. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call. We're staffing twenty four seven at the moment. We're going to keep pouring over the data we have and watch for new stuff. We will keep you updated. Washington DC, Out." And with that she terminated the call.