Hurricane Gustav Case Study

"One day without communications can set you back 100 years in a response and recovery effort. CommsFirst deployed to Grand Isle by helicopter within hours of Hurricane Gustav moving out of the area. The ability to have communications within hours of a major disaster was a once in a million event; It's never been done before."

- Aubrey Chaisson, Grand Isle Fire Chief and Gustav Incident Commander

Managed Services Case Study

White Paper Download: Assuring Interoperability

Explore how to ensure communications operability and interoperability—no matter what—by augmenting infrastructure with innovative methodologies.

Managed Services for Defense, Emergency Response and Critical Infastructure

Ensure operational resiliency with CommsFirst Managed Services. Within minutes of arriving on-scene, we enable response and recovery personnel to communicate, collaborate, and locate resources and experts—regardless of existing infrastructure.

By subscribing to a managed services plan, you gain access to everything you need to restore operations—without having to buy it all.

How it Works

  1. Define your specific response requirements
  2. Subscribe to a Managed Services Plan
  3. Call us when something happens

Within 4 to 48 hours (depending on your service level agreement), our experts will arrive with the resources below to help you recover.

Core Components of a Managed Services Plan

Communications Platforms - SUVs and man-portable assets with rapidly deployable satellite and interoperability resources assure communications independent of terrestrial infrastructure and power. Global coverage and interoperability are achieved within minutes of arrival.

Extended Networks - As the incident unfolds, communities will need to "light up" critical locations such as hospitals and airports. Hastily formed mesh extensions provide voice and data services miles from the primary deployed location of the mobile platforms.

Boots on the Ground - CommsFirst hires, trains, and certifies response personnel from the local community, who arrive within a predetermined timeframe to an incident with the equipment they maintain, upgrade, and continually train on. Response teams are experts in incident response and ad hoc networking, and include former military and first responders.

Training and Preparedness - At the 125-acre CommsFirst Academy outside Atlanta, deployment teams and client personnel exercise together to bolster preparedness for real-world scenarios. Training is available through various means and includes classroom, tabletop, and full in-the-field immersion events.

Emergency Operations Center - When our response teams deploy, 24/7 mission support is provided by our EOC outside Atlanta. Support for all equipment, incident awareness, video, and satellite services, as well as logistics and language translation/interpretation services are all coordinated from here.

Awareness Applications - Situational awareness is delivered simply over the Web with our Awareness Dashboard and Dynamic Directory, enabling quick access to a common operational picture and response expertise and resources that can be queried by location, core competency, and certifications. Additionally, Blueforce Tactical software provides awareness and extended presence data of people, sensors, and services over mobile devices brought to the scene; and it facilitates the secure information exchange among them.

Benefits

  • Uses OPEX vs. CAPEX budget
  • Accelerates recovery
  • Assured interoperability
  • Leverages local human resources
  • Continuous readiness
  • Accessible to more users
  • Facilitates mutual aid
  • Cost-effective and sustainable

Learn more in this case study.

Applicable Markets

  • Port security
  • Railroad security
  • Utilities/energy
  • Border security
  • Pipeline exploration
  • State/local emergency management
  • DoD
  • DHS
  • Critical infrastructure protection
  • Business continuity
  • UASI regions 
  • Airport readiness

Hurricane Response

Disaster response managed service

CommsFirst team deploys under a Managed Services Plan for Hurricane Gustav.

 

Contact us to learn more.