By Dave Buchanan, FirstNet Director of State Consultation

The value of partnerships was one of the biggest takeaways from FirstNet’s initial consultation meeting with the state of North Carolina earlier this year. The FirstNet team met with nearly 90 federal, state, tribal, and local public safety attendees from across the state at the North Carolina Rural Center in Raleigh. We learned how the first responders that provide North Carolina’s public safety efforts excel when they work together as a team, as demonstrated by the North Carolina statewide mutual aid agreement, which we discussed at the meeting.

North Carolina Chief Information Officer Chris Estes underscored the importance of coordination across public safety disciplines during his remarks at the outset of the consultation meeting. “The Governor requires all of us to work as a team,” he said, adding that “you’ve seen the type of commitment he needs.”

Mike Sprayberry, Director of the North Carolina Emergency Management Department, addressed the key operational processes that must be in place for the nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN). “It’s important that what we have with FirstNet is feeding all of that information back to the state response team, and we have situational awareness and operational intelligence available,” he said.

Mike also talked about many of the potential benefits of having a public safety broadband network in the state, including access to applications. As an example, he pointed to an application that the state recently released that provides digital floor-maps of schools. This led to discussion about an active shooter incident at a high school in Albermarle, North Carolina in 2014, and how access to a broadband network could enhance first responders’ situational awareness during these types of incidents.

Jeremy Zollo, FirstNet’s State and Local Outreach Branch Chief, noted that FirstNet’s goal is to deploy a system that can meet North Carolina responders’ needs. “If we don’t start today and get that started with you, and we don’t build the right system with you, then we fail,” he told attendees. FirstNet Board member and North Carolina resident Frank Plastina also discussed FirstNet plans and priorities in the states and territories.

Police Chief (Ret.) Allen Smith, North Carolina Law Enforcement Outreach Coordinator, shared a scenario with us that occurred when he was an active law enforcement officer conducting a search and rescue in which one team was off target from its expected location. He said it would be empowering to put a device on each officer out on a search, and be able to view the live location of each officer on a map. He also discussed other non-traditional ways the network could be used, such as monitoring the stress of first responders. Additionally he discussed future possibilities, such as geo-fencing, providing data for community policing, and using mobile data computers for in-vehicle data systems. He described the need for responders to have portable deployable resources to support mission-critical interoperability.

Greg Hauser, Communications Center Manager with the Charlotte Fire Department, talked about large planned events that have posed challenges to the commercial networks in the past, such as Carolina Panthers games and NASCAR races. He stated that the large volume of voice calls, texts, and social media posts can impact commercial networks, and it can cause the Charlotte Fire Department to lose device functionality at its Mobile Operations Center at times. He also discussed an incident during which the fire department received video footage from a local news helicopter that was on scene at a building fire. These types of video transfers may become more common with increased access to reliable broadband technology, he said.

The FirstNet team received a lot of actionable information from this meeting. I would like to thank North Carolina Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Allan Sadowski and his team for coordinating the meeting and the attendees for taking time out of their busy schedules to have a robust discussion with FirstNet about how we can best meet the communications needs of first responders in North Carolina.

-Dave

View Images of North Carolina Consultation Meeting on the FirstNet Flickr, or click on the image below.