Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwestern Florida as a category four hurricane on September 28, 2022, devastating the communities in its wake. The Motorola Solutions Emergency Response Team (MERT) was on the ground the next morning supporting our public safety customers as they answered the many calls for assistance. We stayed for nine days, working around the clock to ensure that critical land mobile radio systems were operating smoothly. I saw firsthand the dedication of our customers in these moments of greatest need, and I’ve been humbled to hear from them on the commitment of our team and the resiliency of our technology as we faced the storm together.
Sumter County is one of those customers who has shared their story. Their mission-critical communications systems were put to the ultimate test when Hurricane Ian brought high winds and intense flooding. Despite the loss of power and generator issues, instead of going into site trunking, the Motorola Solutions CirrusCentral Core took over. This secondary core, which is connected to the cloud, ensured emergency personnel were able to communicate loud and clear without interruption. Safely removed from the hurricane, this cloud-based secondary system gave Sumter County geo-redundancy protection. Responders were able to operate efficiently on the cloud until power was restored to their core P25 site.
Sumter County shared their experience and the importance of back-up communications systems with Officer.com. Be sure to give their byline a read here: How a Cloud-Based Secondary Radio Helped Sumter County Weather Hurricane Ian.
