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Bremer County supervisors hear cybersecurity tabletop findings and plan follow-up exercises
Summary
Iowa State Extension tabletop exercise highlighted gaps in incident command, written plans and communication; public-health and county staff urged clearer roles, more training and routine exercises with a consultant to update continuity plans within months.
Lenly Barrios reported to the Bremer County Board of Supervisors on a multi-jurisdictional tabletop exercise run by Iowa State Extension that simulated large-scale cyber and communications failures affecting county infrastructure and partner organizations.
“The exercise revealed that we need clearer roles and better coordination and more structured processes,” Barrios told the board, urging adoption of an incident command approach, routine tabletop exercises and clearer public-information roles.
Board members said the county can respond under pressure but identified several gaps the exercise exposed: no up-to-date countywide call tree, uncertainty about who makes tactical facility-level decisions during an outage, and the challenge of relying on part-time elected supervisors for timely incident decisions.
One supervisor noted that, at the tactical level inside the courthouse, a designated person currently performs some incident duties, but the board needs a written continuity-of-operations plan that identifies roles and escalation pathways. Several members argued this is particularly important because operational staff — for example IT and public health — need clear authority during an incident so multiple people don’t publish conflicting information.
Board discussion produced a set of next steps: county staff will ask Aaron to help act as a facilitator/consultant to update and centralize the county plan; identify and certify additional personnel for emergency roles (including basic CERT and incident-command trainings); and schedule a follow-up desktop tabletop exercise in about six to eight months to test updated procedures.
Supervisors also discussed legal and funding constraints: public-health and emergency-management training requirements tied to federal pass-through funding and the need to ensure appropriate documentation for funded programs. The board directed staff to return with an updated written plan and a timeline for training and an exercise to be budgeted in future planning cycles.
The board accepted the report and instructed staff to proceed with the consultant engagement and a timetable for follow-up exercises.
