11.5m emergency calls sent during hurricane

Florida-based Emergency Communications Network (ECN) successfully delivered more than 11.5 million critical communications without fail on behalf of its clients as the Category 4 Hurricane Matthew targeted Florida’s east coast in early October.

The hurricane had threatened a direct hit to the company’s headquarters in Ormond Beach, Florida.

Heavy rains, strong sustained winds reaching up to 250 kph, widespread power outages and other threats loomed as Matthew slowly made its way to the United States after its deadly impacts in Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

The Daytona/Ormond Beach area was projected to be ground zero for the storm’s 65 kilometre-wide eyewall to come ashore.

Despite local conditions over the five-day period — from emergency preparations to updates during and after the storm, leading into the recovery process —  CodeRED successfully placed more than 11.5 million calls, issued 600,000 emails and delivered more than 500,000 text messages, without fail.

“I am very proud of the dedicated effort ECN personnel accomplished through this stressful event that impacted each of us personally,” said David DiGiacomo, president of ECN.

“During the two days leading up to the storm and throughout its duration, we are proud to report the system supported an unmatched amount of call volume with no downtime and zero impact on the use of the system by clients located in other areas of the US.”

In preparation for the storm, ECN headquarters mobilised its Threat Assessment Team, activated critical personnel in its Minnesota and San Diego offices, and dispersed local technical support representatives to safe locations across the state.

Other personnel remained in the company’s headquarters throughout the event to ensure system sustainability and provide potential troubleshooting.

Due to the company’s preparation and experience combined with the CodeRED solution being hosted on a triple-redundant infrastructure, calls went out with no downtime.

Image courtesy ECN.