How advanced technologies can help emergency response during a crisis

Drawing on years of expertise working directly with first responders, law enforcement, local and national government, and other critical infrastructure service providers, Verizon has teamed up with a variety of other technology companies serving the first responder community to create a live crisis response exercise to explore how technology can support them in an emergency situation.

Operation Convergent Response (#OCR2017) – presented by Verizon, Nokia, Aegex and other technology leaders – brings first responders, state and local government officials and business leaders to The Guardian Center in Perry GA June 7-8, to demonstrate technologies they can use to respond to complex, rapidly changing crisis situations such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes and terrorist attacks.

Attendees will observe reenactments of crisis situations and get to see first-hand how new and existing technologies can work under pressure to support rescue and recovery efforts. Operation Convergent Response is using five crisis scenarios as backdrops for the technology demonstrations:

• An F4 tornado with major casualties
• Flooding of a residential neighborhood
• A building collapse at a chemical factory
• A subway terror attack
• An active shooter/hostage situation

In addition, a functioning trauma center will be in place to demonstrate advanced medical response and treatment technologies, and an emergency operations center will show how first responders can direct and monitor coordinated response efforts on the scene.

Each crisis scenario will feature real-time, live-action responses by actual first responders, along with demonstrations of the advanced technologies in action. Examples of technologies on display are:

• Mobile cell sites and tethered airborne 4G LTE technology
• Tactical 360 degree surveillance
• Autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial systems and remotely operated robotic systems
• Chemical detection and decontamination systems
• Remote telemedicine support and medical Internet of Things applications
• Software Defined Perimeter, SDN/SD-WAN and VNS solutions
• Secure cloud apps and advanced data security solutions

Beyond the technologies themselves, Operation Convergent Response will demonstrate how Verizon and other technology leaders can rapidly join forces to support first responders in an emergency – something Verizon has been doing for years.

It starts with a reliable 4G LTE wireless network and Verizon’s ability to deploy creative new technologies such as airborne 4G LTE service in the event of extreme weather conditions. It’s backed up by our responses to events such as Hurricane Matthew and the Oroville Dam emergency.

First responders nationwide know they can rely on Verizon’s history of running to a crisis to support them when they need us. That was true yesterday, it’s true today, and it will be true tomorrow.

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