A “microburst” may sound small, but these weather phenomena inflict tornado-like damage that can be deadly. The New Hampshire town of Milford, home to 20,000 people, was hit by a microburst this summer. Their public safety community jumped into action, including 9-1-1 telecommunicators who took live computer-aided dispatch into the field to streamline recovery efforts.
Staffing during the height of the storm
The microburst ripped through Milford around 8 p.m. on a July evening. The National Weather Service reported 95 mph winds and a path of damage over a half-mile wide.
The storm’s aftermath included 6 closed roads and 18 damaged homes, with 6 of those homes deemed uninhabitable.
Though no injuries were reported, the storm’s damages caused a significant spike in 9-1-1 calls for the Milford Area Communications Center.
“Normally, we staff two dispatchers for most of the day. During the entirety of the storm, we had five dispatchers on,” said Ray Anderson, Director of the Milford Area Communications Center.
The center typically would field around 85 telephone calls in a 24-hour summer day. During the microburst, it fielded 172 calls and processed 150 computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, calls for service during a 3-hour timespan.
“It was a very aggressive couple hours,” said Jeff Marshall, Deputy Chief of the Milford Fire Department. “But then we got it under control and demobilized with a plan to come back the next day.”
Expediting recovery with CAD in the field
After the initial response efforts, the public safety community worked together to assess the damage and begin recovery efforts.
“We created a unified command center that was literally run from the fire chief's department vehicle with three radios and some worktables,” said Deputy Chief Marshall. The unified command center was staffed by supervisors from the police and public works departments, as well as local utilities staff and building inspectors.
Importantly, according to Deputy Chief Marshall, “We had a representative from our dispatch center at the incident command who was using FirstNet with a laptop that had live CAD.” This allowed the inspection teams going door-to-door to radio information back to the incident command and be entered directly into the system.
“Having the dispatcher there expedited the inspection process,” said Deputy Chief Marshall. “After the completion of all that work, the reporting was done. We didn't have to go out, do the surveying and mitigation, then come back into our offices, sit down in front of our computers, and do more work. That's the real power of bringing high-speed data out to the field.”
Day after brings new challenges
“That next day I knew what the workload was going to be,” said Director Anderson about the daunting recovery operations the morning after the microburst. He correctly predicted that during the storm, people focused on their safety. But when they woke up the next morning and saw their property damage, they would realize they needed help. “The communication center was going to be overrun again.”
Director Anderson wanted to lessen the burden on staff at the communication center, especially after the high-volume night. He came up with the idea to embed a dispatcher in the field with the recovery team.
The capabilities existed to dispatch in the field. His agency laptop is designed to remotely connect to his office desktop and run CAD. “I used my FirstNet phone as a hotspot, so I could remote into my office and run CAD like I was sitting in the dispatch center,” he said.
Because he had access to his in-office tools, Director Anderson was able to make all the necessary calls from the field to report utility outages.
These efforts were appreciated by the staff on duty in the Communications Center. “Everybody was very happy about it,” said Director Anderson. “The two dispatchers on duty had a very long shift the night before and were still very busy that morning. They appreciated our ability to decrease their call volume.”
Planning for future events
Because the remote dispatching was a success during the microburst recovery, the Milford Area Communications Center is seeking to replicate the success for future uses.
“I’m working with our IT vendor to develop a rugged laptop with a FirstNet SIM card and live CAD capabilities,” said Director Anderson. “We're also going to put our training database on it, so if the comms center is ever physically down with no electricity or Internet, we’ll still have access to our databases.”
Deputy Chief Marshall also envisions getting connectivity for the town’s drone program to enable livestreaming. After the microburst, two drones surveyed the damage, and the pilot captured video and photos for the recovery team to view later. In the future, Deputy Chief Marshall hopes to streamline the process with high-speed data connectivity. “It would have been really great to see that video feed in real time.”
Communicating during disasters
FirstNet service was not affected by the microburst. Milford officials didn’t have to request a deployable for backup satellite coverage. “Never once did I lose any type of connectivity,” said Director Anderson. “If I wouldn't have had connectivity, our response and recovery operations would not have been possible.”
Your experience
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