Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. RESPONDERS TODAY Building a better rolling information center BY PHILIP LEGGIERE, BUSINESS EDITOR LT. JOSH CLOT OF THE HOMESTEAD POLICE DEPARTMENT IN HOMESTEAD, FLA., KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE ON THE RECEIVING END OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND TO FIND IT WANTING. Sixteen years ago, after Hurricane Andrew wracked Southern Florida, scores of emergency units from throughout the state converged on his hometown, which had been decimated by the storm. “We learned in a personal way just why a fully equipped operation ready emergency vehicle is critical,” Clot told HSToday. “During and after the storm, rescue and response crews from throughout the state and region converged on us. The problem was that once they got to us they were expecting us to provide them with communications infrastructure, with supplies and with logistics support. The problem, of course, was we didn’t have any of those things. From then on we vowed that when we were on the helping end of a crisis we’d be fully response ready. Our formula is: ‘If you don’t bring it, you won’t have it in an emergency.’” Over the past few years, Clot said, the kind of emergency units that he wished had existed during Hurricane Andrew— vehicles that not only transport teams to the scene of a crisis but actually provide critical communications infrastructure when normal operating systems are down—have finally begun to become available to response agencies. “The emergency vehicle has finally changed itself into a rolling information center,” he said. EMERGENCY RESPONSE VEHICLES “The challenge and innovation now is more about the software side,” Bohne added. “We’ve become dependent on restoring resiliency to areas facing disruption of communications processes. The line of innovation for us has been to create a truly resilient and flexibly scaleable communications platform that can be easily set up on the fly. If a disaster knocks down all lines and cell towers in an area, we can re-create a temporary fully functional infrastructure.” In November 2008, Verizon demonstrated its next-generation mobile command at the “Great ShakeOut Drill,” a full-scale scenario in California that simulated a catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake occurring along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault. The exercise included over 4 million citizens. Verizon deployed a 53-foot, self-contained, self-sufficient mobile communications command center to provide business continuity services for Riverside County. During the exercise, the entire Riverside County Emergency Operations Center relocated to the mobile command center. Twenty Riverside County employees connected their laptops to the command center’s Ethernet ports to access the Internet and conduct emergency response activities. The mobile command center was outfitted with standard communications features such as wired and wireless voice over Internet protocol phones and wired and wireless Ethernet access, as well as fax service. Tremendous strides A central achievement of these next-generation “rolling information centers,” according to Bob Bohne, director of technical operations forVerizon Business, Basking Ridge, NJ, is to make mobile command communications as fully functional as traditional emergency command centers in office buildings. “Back in the ’90s and even for the first years after 9/11, emergency vehicles made tremendous strides forward on what might be called the ‘hardware’ side,” Bohne recalled,“meaning the speed,the power and the flexibility of the vehicles themselves. Next steps The next communications frontier, according to Christopher Boyd, communications architect at Incident Communication Solutions, LLC, Stevensville, Md., a communications system integrator that works with many leading emergency vehicle manufacturers, is to make emergency mobile command vehicles tools for effective interagency incident response. “What Katrina made us in the mobile command, emergency vehicle space realize,” Boyd recalled, “was that the true test of an emergency unit was whether it provided operability in a crisis environment where normal infrastructures can’t be relied upon.” “I remember one of the first mobile command projects I worked on and disHSToday Magazine | February 2009 Mobile command posts are often on the cutting edge of interoperable communications. Register online today for exclusive online content and eNewsletters 9