With Hurricane Irma still fresh in everyone’s mind, 45 public safety officials from the Orlando, FL area recently gathered at a Verizon network facility for a closer look at how Verizon prepares for major weather emergencies and other events. The local officials also got insight into how Verizon’s network performed during and after the storm. They also got “a peek behind the curtain” at the redundant systems built into Verizon’s network to maintain connectivity for first responders and all customers every day and in times of emergency, and a demonstration of how drone technology can provide high-definition video surveillance capabilities for their emergency response efforts.
The meeting was one of a series of briefings being held across the country to give public safety greater visibility into how Verizon is working to ensure first responders continue to have access to reliable communications networks.
Russ Preite, Verizon Southeast Market president, cited Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, as well as the wildfires in several western states, as examples of the critical need to have reliable networks in place.
Ramesh Toolsie, director of Network Assurance for Verizon, said that even though it had been 12 years since a hurricane last impacted the Orlando area, the local network team was prepared for Irma because they train for events like Irma every year and learn from past events locally and in other parts of the country.
More than 560 Verizon network employees worked to assess storm damage and restore service throughout Florida and into South Carolina and Georgia, according to a company press release. They deployed one cell on light truck (COLT), two mobile cell towers, six satellite pico cells on trailers (SPOTs – to provide satellite communications), more than 140 portable generators, and more than 200 refueling trucks carrying a total of more than 460,000 gallons of fuel to maintain and restore service throughout the affected areas. During the storm, 90 percent of the Verizon network in Florida remained in service. Verizon was back at business-as-usual levels within a matter of days.
Verizon’s guests also got a behind-the-scenes look at a local switching center and massive back-up generators and batteries that can keep the facility and the network online for days in the event of commercial power loss.
December 7, 2017
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