In Summary:

• A 911 service interruption occurred in September 2018 that required the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ 911 Program (NCT911) to communicate with internal and external stakeholders during the crisis—a task made more difficult because a crisis communications plan didn’t exist at the time.
• MCP subject-matter experts thoroughly assessed the steps taken by NCT911 to communicate information about the outage to the affected internal and stakeholders, and assess their effectiveness in reaching those groups.
• A crisis communications plan subsequently was completed by NCT911 that contains several actions based on the recommendations provided by MCP.

Background:

In Summary: 

• This whitepaper examines the advantages and the disadvantages of three approaches to provisioning an emergency services Internet protocol network—which not only provides the foundation of a Next Generation 911 system, but also performs other important functions.
• Three ways exist to implement an ESInet: contract with a commercial entity or self-provision. A third model is a hybrid ESInet model.
• The path an agency uses can take two very different tasks, and each has its unique advantages and disadvantages. The path an agency chooses will depend heavily on its financial and IT resources, whether it can be coalesce regional support, and the level of commitment it can and is willing to lend to the project.

Background 

Next Generation 911 (NG911) systems represent a quantum leap forward for the public-safety community and the citizens that it serves. Internet Protocol (IP)-based and broadband-enabled, such systems are capable of considerably more than legacy 911 systems—which is why many emergency communications centers (ECCs) from coast to coast are clamoring to implement them.

In Summary:

• The public safety radio system used by county, city and university agencies was near end of life and was experiencing significant performance and maintenance issues.
• The county partnered with Mission Critical Partners to support its efforts to procure a new radio system.
• Some users have operated on a temporary bridge system since February 2020; the migration of all users to the full system is expected to be complete by mid-2021.

Background

Story County, Iowa, is located in the center of the state and has a population of about 98,000. Its largest city is Ames, which is home to Iowa State University (ISU), the state capital and is is located about 30 miles north of Des Moines.

In Summary:

• Manatee County's audiovisual system that served the county’s public safety complex was experiencing significant issues concerning reliability, lack of flexibility and difficult-to-view screens.
• The county partnered with Mission Critical Partners to provide subject-matter expertise and to guide and support the procurement process.
• The new system is extremely flexible, even allowing users working remotely to access it, which has been an important benefit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background

Manatee County is located along Florida’s Gulf Coast. It is bordered by the cities of Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg to the north, Hardee and DeSoto counties to the east, the city of Sarasota to the south, and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. 

In this on-demand session, MCP and regional and state-level 911 directors to learn best practices for mitigating major 911 service interruptions, including:

• Continuity-of-operations planning (COOP) at state and regional levels
• The importance of a crisis preparedness plan
• The use of tabletop exercises to assess the organization’s preparedness