ALFRED, Maine — The weather in York County on Sept. 16 was unremarkable — a high of 80 degrees, partly cloudy, light wind.
But inside the York County Emergency Operations Center, more than 30 people spent the day managing a raging hurricane with winds as high as 110 miles per hour. The mock hurricane was part of a training exercise designed to gauge the readiness of emergency management agencies and their volunteers to a Category 2 hurricane.
The imaginary hurricane made landfall in Massachusetts before landing in coastal Maine. More than 30 people — volunteers and staff from county, state, tribal and federal emergency management organizations — took part in the Maine Strong 2026 Functional Exercise. The goal was to sharpen their skills in response to multiple scenarios that could happen in real life.
“It tested our planning and response,” said Megan Arsenault, deputy director of York County Emergency Management Agency.
Staff and volunteers tested setting up the emergency operations center, notifying the public, supporting shelter operations and prioritizing power restoration, Arsenault said.
“Then we pushed ourselves to the limit – what to do if cell phones, internet, satellite phones and public safety communications went down,” she said. “By the end of the exercise, we were depending on ham radio.”
That’s a reason to encourage local emergency department personnel to have backup emergency communications like ham, even though it may never be needed, Arsenault said. Ham radios can function without electricity or the internet to get signals out in a disaster.
The 2026 hurricane season started on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted below-normal activity in the Atlantic basin this year. A typical hurricane season yields 14 named storms, of which seven become hurricanes, according to NOAA. This year, the agency is predicting between seven and 13 named storms and two to six hurricanes.
The Maine Strong exercise saw “Tropical Storm Kyle” develop off the British Virgin Islands on Sept 8, and make its way east of the Bahamas as a category 4 hurricane. It became a Category 3 off the Carolinas, and the imaginary hurricane made landfall on Martha’s Vineyard as a Category 2, with winds from 96 to 110 miles per hour before landing at Boothbay Harbor, also as a Category 2.
The mock hurricane saw gusts up to 96 miles an hour in Portland, produced a storm surge of more than 5 feet in Downeast Maine and caused flash flooding statewide. Late season tourists were stranded in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, and there was flash flooding inland all over Maine in the mock exercise.
In attendance at the Maine Strong exercise were county emergency management agencies across the state, tribal emergency managers, the Maine Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
They evaluated how the emergency operations centers coordinated and shared critical information with each other and their state and federal counterparts; conducted preliminary damage assessments; coordinated public messaging; and tracked logistics requests and more.
“Our procedures and plans worked really well,” Arsenault said. “We didn’t find any critical gaps, but small things we can improve on. The exercise showed us where we need to focus. We really learned a lot.”
This story is based on material contributed by Tammy Wells.
