Kismet Serves as Incident Command Post for the CCE26 Communications Exercise

At the end of October 2026, Kismet deployed to the Marysville Civic Center to serve as the incident command post (ICP) for Marysville’s part of CCE26, the statewide Catastrophic Communications Exercise. This year’s scenario was a first for us: a simulated cyberattack that knocked out cellular service, the internet and the power grid, which is a real possibility. With all of that down, every message had to move by radio, and Kismet had to run on its own power. Marysville’s teams communicated with each other and with Snohomish County, and the county passed our requests up to the state.

What the exercise covered

City of Marysville Emergency Management ran the morning portion from the City EOC, testing links to Snohomish County DEM and the call-out process for volunteer radio operators. In the afternoon, Marysville ACS deployed into the field:

• Kismet set up as the ICP, with the radio officer checking Winlink and amateur VHF/UHF systems and logging results on ICS-214 forms.

• North and south field teams set up at assigned locations and established two-way voice communications with the ICP.

• A portable interoperability repeater was deployed across town to extend coverage, and field operators checked in through it.

• Kismet sent check-in, field situation, Incident Snapshot (ISNAP), and check-out reports over Winlink.

How Kismet performed

Kismet ran on its own power for the entire exercise. The generator and inverter ran for about five and a half hours without a hiccup, using roughly 20% of the fuel on board, and the heat pump kept the ICP staff warm through a full day of rain and cold weather. Coordination on the City's amateur repeater was solid, with every station coming in clearly, including one operator who checked in from well south of Marysville. The mast-mounted cameras helped the team monitor the area around the ICP and confirm a line-of-sight problem with the HamWAN connection.

What we learned

Exercises are for finding problems before a real emergency does, and CCE26 found a couple. Large trees across the street hampered Kismet's HamWAN data link back to the county, and the team ran into unexpected RF noise near one of the exercise channels. Next time, the ICP will set up at the south end of the Civic Center campus for a clear path, and we'll go back out with the spectrum analyzer to track down the noise. Those notes are going into the City's after-action report.

At the end of the day, the team regrouped for a hotwash to talk through what worked and what didn’t. A rainbow appeared over Kismet just as everyone came back together, a fitting end to a long day of working in the rain.

Thank you to City of Marysville Emergency Management for planning the exercise, and to every Marysville ACS volunteer who took part.