You're the Emergency Manager for Centre County and have been actively watching the news to stay informed of the weather forecast. The Northeastern United States is experiencing record low temperatures, and heavy snowfall is predicted to sweep through the region Sunday night with accumulations of twelve or more inches forecast from Washington to Boston. Having made the usual preparations for a winter storm, you turn in early knowing you'll have a long day ahead of you. When you awake, you check outside and see there is well over a foot of snow and that the temperature is 22 degrees. You are heading downstairs to turn on the news when the lights go out and you assume the outage is storm-related so you decide to head into the county's Emergency Management Center since they have a generator so you can get an update on the storm. You live in a rural part of the county so it takes you nearly an hour to arrive. As you arrive, the shift manager informs you that the media is reporting widespread power outages across the Northeast and millions are without power and indications are that the entire county is without power. They further report that the Secretary of Homeland Security is set to give a news conference any minute; when it commences, you learn that there is suspicion that the outage is the result of a well-coordinated cyber-attack. The Secretary urges local authorities to exercise their response plans and to expect the duration of the outage to be a substantial one, possibly lasting for days, weeks or even months.

1. Create a summary of the general response plan that highlights the assets that will need to be deployed and the type of support they will need to provide (objectives) and why.