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Product Announcements
TITLE: Company Rolls Out Rapid Response Vehicle
A small platform with a broad bandwidth |
| RELEASE DATE: 08/01/2007 |
CONTENT:
Innovative Solutions Consulting, Inc. introduced its new E-350 Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV) in early May. The vehicle is designed to pro-vide first responders and agency leadership a rapidly deployable emergency communications plat-form for disaster response.
TALK TO ME
Military personnel assigned to Tactical Operations Centers (TOC) located deep within a cave in the Asian Pacific theatre, a concrete bunker in the British Isles, a tent in the Republic of Germany, or even a building in Virginia know just how crucial reliable communication is to their mission. Citizens that live in areas that are frequently besieged by natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and forest fires, also know the critical role that communication plays before, during, and after the event. People residing in the local region got first hand experience when Hurricane Isabel left many without power and other services for four or more days. And many have learned the importance of reliable communications during both natural and man made crises occurring on Interstate 95 that have effectively shut down any ingress or egress from the area. On September 11, 2001, the rest of America, and the world, witnessed how lack of vital communication assets affected the actions of first responders and the outcome of their response. To have the desired impact in a crisis situation and to be effective, communications must also be immediate. First responders cannot operate efficiently, unless all teams are able to communicate with each other in both directions. This is a vital element in operational readiness and safety during any emergency. In many situations, poor or no co-ordination, slow response time, and misinformation can be traced back to lack of effective communications. Unfortunately, these elements combine to result in unnecessary loss of life, limb, and property. By equipping a vehicle with a reliable communication system, military organizations; local, state, and federal government agencies; and private industry can ensure continuity of operations. Innovative Solutions Consulting Inc.'s new E-350 RRV is meant to provide just such a mobile capability to assist in maintaining the vital communication functions for crisis management situations.
STATIONARY EOC's
ISC also has the capability to provide the engineering and logistics support for stationary Emergency Operations Center platforms for all levels of government and industry. State, local and federal govern-ment agencies need to maintain a brick and mortar EOC in the safest and most sheltered environment possible. But experience has shown that even stationary EOC's are not always survivable.
A DEAFENING SILENCE
When Hurricane Hugo slammed into Charleston, S.C. many agencies learned a difficult lesson as they watched their infrastructure crumble. The nearly totally evacuated city lost all telephone communications by 11 p.m. and except for sporadic emergency power, the whole city went dark before midnight. The state's EOC nearly 100 miles away in Columbia had received a ham radio report from the National Weather Service (NWS) at Charles-ton Air Force Base saying the eye of Hugo was above them. The roof of the NWS building blew off about two minutes later. Some radio transmissions were being received at the U.S. Amy Corps of Engineers EOC in Wilmington, N.C. from the crew on one of their boats working in the Charles-ton area that had spudded down in an upstream creek to weather the storm. But during the storm, and for many hours after, there was no reliable communication coming in or out of the center of the devastated area. And the silence was deafening.
A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
Hurricane Hugo initiated a turning point in crisis management in the U.S. But even as the federal government was developing new plans, three years later in 1992 Hurricane Andrew struck an even more devastating blow. A series of other natural disasters and Hurricanes culminating with Katrina and Rita have followed and again our communications systems were tested. All along the Gulf coast, on military bases and in communities, and especially in the city of New Or-leans, stationary EOC assets faltered and the world witnessed the utter chaos that ensued through lack of effective communication.
ISC EFFORTS EFFECTIVE IN KATRINA AND RITA
When local Army National Guard units arrived after Hurricane Katrina, many didn't even have SINCGARS radios, as much of their equipment was left behind in the Middle East for follow-on troop deployments. This left them incapable of communicating with even their active duty Army counterparts. Fortunately the National Guard Bureau (NGB) was able to deploy some of their 22 person Civil Sup-port Teams (CST). The National Defense Authorization Act of FY 03 authorized the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stand up these teams. They serve as the lead element of the National Guard response force and a key element of the DOD Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) program to support civil authority. Part of the mandate to the CST's was to have communications with "reach back" capability to local, state, and federal agencies. As a result, ISC, through a NAVAIR services contract, provided the engineering for their Unified Command Suite Mobile Communications Vehicle. Army reports lauded these teams for their response, part of which was linked to their communications capabilities. The goal is for each state and territory to have two CST's prepositioned for rapid deployment in crisis situations.
MOBILE EOC's
Mobile C2, C3 and C4's are not new to the military or to state and local governments and emergency support organizations. Most of these units are self sustainable for long periods of time, and can provide continuity of operations for a fairly large staff. They accomplish this long term mission easily because the units themselves are usually large. Although these mobile EOC's are mission essential, due to their size, even if pre-positioned in a natural disaster setting, they can sometimes not get through to the affected site immediately. This is however, the most viable solution for organizations that may have suffered damage to their EOC infrastructure, or who have a need for a large satellite EOC. ISC also can provide a full range of engineering services and support for the communications requirements on these large mobile units. There are many scenarios in cri-sis response in which an EOC also needs to set up satellite sites in a triangulated area of devastation to reach all affected citizens. However, other than ensuring access to the necessary large mobile EOC's for mission accomplishment, it is usually not necessary, nor cost effective for an agency to buy, store, maintain, or deploy additional large units. Initially in many crisis situations, first responders also may not be able to bring one of these large units into the affected area. A smaller mobile unit could ensure continuity of operations until the larger unit arrived.
ISC'S RRV SMALL FOOTPRINT SOLUTION
To solve the problems of deploying a large scale mobile EOC, ISC has 'loaded' all of the C3 assets one needs to run a highly functional EOC into a Ford van. The small footprint of the Ford E-350 van allows for mobility into areas where the larger motor coach sized mobile EOC's may not be able to travel. The vehicle can be equipped with four wheel drive to get through debris strewn natural disaster areas or other rugged terrain and it is small enough to move through crowded urban streets. Carrying a rack system communications package, it can support two rear workstations and a front passenger seat workstation. The vehicle is diesel powered and via an onboard 12V power generator can sustain both the vehicle and equipment for 14 to 16 hours. Once on site, the mobile RRV can be up and running in 10 to 15 minutes according to Tom Knowlton, ISC Business Development Director.
UNDER THE HOOD
The van does say "Ford" on the hood, but that is where the re-semblance ends on this maxed out communication system built around a high end SWE-Dish Ku-Band Satellite. "Our demonstration vehicle was built like a Cadillac or the Porsche 911," said Knowlton. "We wanted to show our customers everything that they could possibly put on the vehicle. "It has always been easy to deter-mine who was in charge at an emergency response site by the number of antennas attached to a person's vehicle. The emergency manager rolling up in an ISC RRV would definitely stand out as a leader. In addition to the dish, the E-350 RRV has VHF, UHF, Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), wireless Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), repeater, Iridium satellite phone, surveillance camera, emergency lighting and siren, and full computer capabilities. The system can be designed to fit the customer's needs both with the platform and the communications content. Built around a rack system, the unit can easily grow with both the needs and budget of a community or agency. It also allows easy access when necessary to service, upgrade, or add new communication technology to the system.
ACCESSORIES
To provide even more functionality the E-350 can be equipped with items such as a utility trailer and auxiliary generator or a 25 ft. telescopic mast. Knowlton said they can also add on a cell tower to the package. "Once you pulled into an affected area, the responders would need to find out which system service was available. Then it would be as simple as plugging in the applicable card such as GSM, NEXTEL, or Verizon." The system is meant to be de-signed and built to the customer's specifications and ISC can also provide communications circuit encryption or body armor.
YOU'RE on YOUR OWN
Emergency managers constantly remind citizens and other agencies that they should be prepared to be on their own for at least the first three days following a disaster or crisis. Although the federal government is in the process of standing up the final Guard CST's, even with two in each state their arrival may be outside the "Golden 72 Hours." And if they are already deployed to a higher priority emergency, it may take even longer for these re-sources to arrive from an alternate propositioned location. On July 23 Code3 Associates Executive Director Jim Boller returned to Longmont, Co. He, along with a team of first responders had just returned from Kansas. The team responds to disasters at government request. They deploy with a 77 ft. 1993 Freightliner Mo-bile Command Vehicle (MCV) and two support vehicles. The MCV vehicle is known as B.A.R.T., or the Big Animal Rescue Truck. Boller is fairly new to Code3, but is not a stranger to crisis response and has weathered both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita while working out of Houston. He has first hand experience with the added problems ineffective or nonexistent communication bring to the disaster response scenario. B.A.R.T. has always traveled with UHF and VHF capabilities and a repeater system. This capability is also onboard their two support vehicles, and eight hand-held units are field deployable. Boller has also experienced the frustration of not being able to use his system in situations where the government has taken over the frequencies and when cell service is non existent. Of his current trip he said, "We were lucky." Although there was no incident commander's (IC) radio interface system available for inter-agency communications, the local government's rescue department was able to dispatch calls directly to the Code3 MCV. "This is extremely important to first responders, as we need to know immediately if there has been a safety breach in an area such as a natural gas leak or live power lines," said Boller. And the seasoned first responder has at times also had to deal with 'communications discrimination.' EOC's or IC's must include all essential responders and allow them the opportunity to integrate with whatever communication is available. "They should not discriminate based on some preconceived notion that a jurisdictionally requested task, such as technical animal res-cue, is an after thought even though it is required by signed federal law," said Boller. The requirement to provide effective communication to the myriad of agencies and rescue organizations assigned missions by the federal government under a disaster declaration further emphasizes the need for effective local communication assets.
To maintain the necessary communications to these first responders and follow on organizations, many local agencies will need to provide mobile communications capabilities to support their missions, especially if they experience a widespread disaster. Due to other ongoing natural disasters, no Guard CST's with their communications suites were deployed to the flood emergency to which Boller's team had responded.
E-350 RRV
The compact E-350 RRV has the capability to establish and maintain emergency communications throughout the full spectrum of responses even when normal infrastructure has not survived. It can also be the solution for providing additional satellite EOC's or a mobile platform for an IC. There are many instances in which there is no federal or state disaster declaration, which is required for deployment of certain emergency response assets, but it is necessary for a locality to rapidly deploy an emergency communications capability. Even in instances when there is a declaration, it does not necessarily go into effect immediately before, during, or after a disaster. And when it does become effective, it still takes time to stand up and deploy fully equipped organizations, even those already on alert. The broader range of emergency responders may also tax some current EOC communication capabilities. Passage of HR3858, or the PETS Act, and other new emergency preparedness and recovery legislation will require additional communication assets to support the additional organizations deploying to meet new mandates. ISC can meet most of the new agency demands through their full life cycle project management program. Most importantly they now have the E -350 RRV capable of delivering the same communications assets of the larger mobile platforms. Complete information on the E-350 RRV, the Suburban RRV, and Mobile C3 and Broadcast Systems, as well as ISC's facilities and capabilities is available at www.teamisc.com.
Click here to read the article printed in The Source in August 2007. |
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