1. FirstNet: Our Nation’s Public Safety Network
Edward Parkinson, Acting CEO
CES Government
Friday, January 11, 2019
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2. FirstNet in Action: Hurricane Florence
At “the height of the storm, we lost all of our land-based mobile systems out of our county dispatch center… At one point, we were the only thing talking in the county.”
— Hal Lowder, Director, City of Whiteville’s Emergency Operations Center
Like to start with a story – a real-life example of FirstNet in action.
North Carolina was hard-hit by Hurricane Florence in September. The slow moving Category 1 storm brought history flooding.
The City of Whiteville was one of the first cities to join FirstNet in the State of North Carolina. FirstNet supported Whiteville’s emergency response efforts to Hurricane Florence by deploying a SatCOLT (Satellite Cell on Light Truck) to the Whiteville Fire Department staging area.
Hal Lowder, director of the emergency operations center said that FirstNet played a vital role in the city’s recovery efforts, particularly after the failure of its LMR system.
Lowder said: “When everything was down, FirstNet was working… At one point, we were the only thing talking in the county.”
Whiteville public-safety, city officials and some mutual-aid personnel were able to maintain communications by using AT&T’s enhanced-push-to-talk service (EPTT) over the FirstNet system without interruption. “There were times there when EPTT was our primary means of communications,” Lowder said.
AT&T video:
Urgent Communications article:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of AT&T video

3. Public Safety Innovation