The Northern New York Section-wide SET is currently being planned by a committee. Here is the section scenario and plan outline so far:
 
Date:  Saturday, October 7
Time:  8AM ~ 12PM

Scenario:

A severe winter storm (ice, high winds, etc.) impacts several counties knocking out power and communications lines, blocking roads, etc. 

The storm hits a couple of days before the SET. 

Initially, public safety radio systems are mostly operational, running on emergency power. The county emergency management office does not perceive a need for assistance from hams.

However, after a few days of continuous operation, public safety systems are failing as generators run out of fuel and batteries run out of charge.  

Some roads have been cleared and some local travel is possible, but conditions are such that tower sites can not be accessed for refueling. Dismal winter weather coupled with ice means that solar charging is inadequate. Public safety radio systems eventually fail. There are no county-wide or longer-distance comms. There is no cell service or Internet. All amateur radio repeaters also fail as they run out of power.**

Assistance from ARES is requested. Communications are needed between the county EOC, Incident Command Post, staging areas, shelters, and/or other locations. Some roads have been cleared and opened enough that hams can get from their homes to these locations. (In an actual situation, it may be that transportation is provided by humvee or snowmobile, or whatever, so this may be an opportunity for those with good portable go kits to practice not being able to take a fully-equipped vehicle to a deployment.)

Your county government/emergency management department also needs to communicate with the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to coordinate state and local disaster response, and possibly with neighboring counties to coordinate mutual aid. 

This scenario is based on the actual situation that occurred during the ice storm that affected Jefferson, St. Lawrence, and parts of Lewis County in 1998, and the amateur radio response that occurred.

The objective for each county ARES group is to establish county-wide communications, and communication in/out of the county, as best possible with available resources, without relying on repeaters or other commercial/public communications infrastructure, and to handle tactical and message traffic as may be required. 

A goal is to set up at least two major "deployed" locations. Additional deployed operations are encouraged.

If the county EOC has operational amateur radio equipment, it should be activated as one of the locations. If not, set up in the EOC parking lot if you get permission to do so. If you can't do that, you set up as close as you can where you do have permission. 

Pick one other location that might be a major operations center and deploy a communications team to it.

All participating hams can and should deploy if able and willing. They can go to the closest school, church, firehouse, hospital, health center, or other critical facility or potential shelter /community aid location. If they can make arrangements to get in and set up, that is great. If they can engage the staff in the exercise, even better. If not operate from the parking lot or nearby to simulate a deployment. Others can operate from home stations (preferably on emergency power but to get maximum participation this will not be required), as relay stations.

Operators should be on-station and operational by 9 AM.

Use any and all radio-only means of communication at your disposal that is not dependent on local infrastructure (no repeaters or hotspots/Internet linking). HF, VHF, UHF. FM, SSB, digital voice, NBEMS, Winlink (peer-to-peer, or to any RMS outside the affected area because we are not assuming the power and communications emergency covers more than the NNY counties), VarAC, CW, etc. If CB or GMRS works, use it. Maybe this is a way to get some non-licensed people interested. Remember, all repeaters are not operational because even if they survived the ice and wind, they are out of power.**

County nets will gather status reports and exchange other messages. At 10 AM, a section net will be established. County reports will be sent to the section EC or his designee and information, instructions, or requests for information may be sent back to the counties. The net will operate until all traffic is passed. On the assumption that everyone is operating on limited power, the HF net may shut down and a second session will open at 11 AM, and a final session at noon. (We may not want to relinquish a frequency once we have it because it may be hard to find another clear frequency.)  County nets may remain operational to pass additional information or messages from deployed locations or from the state/section to the EOC or from the EOC or ICP to other individual locations.

The Section Manager (Rocco WU2M) will be on the air in a location near Albany as the simulated radio operator/message handler interfacing with NYS DHSES. 

The details of section HF net operation are TBD pending the next planning meeting but my suggestion is to exercise voice, NBEMS digital, and Winlink either peer-to-peer or by connection to RMS stations outside the affected area. 
 
The section SET planning committee will be meeting again shortly, and additional details of the section exercise will be available. 

Each participating county ARES will generate and execute a plan for the county that fits with the group's interests, capabilities, and training goals; and anticipates possible county emergency response needs.

**  The scenario is that due to the extended emergency situation which includes bad weather and blocked roads, there is no commercial power to repeater sites and no way to refuel generators or recharge batteries. The primary reason that hams have been brought in is because of the degraded public safety radio systems. Even if repeaters are not physically damaged, they have no power. This includes ham radio repeaters, local packet/Winlink/APRS nodes, etc. The objective is to "cover the county" and effect coms to NYS DHSES without relying on infrastructure. However, if you feel you can't involve everyone without repeater use, then do what you have to do.to get participation. Possibly this is an opportunity to have an antenna-building project before or after the SET. 

This plan outline has been provided to all NNY ECs. There is a committee working out the section plan details. Each county will tailor a local plan to fit their situation.