Former Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate recently published a whitepaper on disaster response communications in the COVID-19 era. During his career at FEMA, Fugate heralded the use of mobile technology and social media as more and more communities — and their first responders — relied on wireless cellular

The military is perpetually innovating new ways to increase soldier survivability and lethality. It’s what drives much of their investment into new military platforms, weapons systems, and other tools for the warfighter. And one of the areas where the military is focusing much of its efforts is on outfitting what

In 2014, I was serving as the Senior Strategic Homeland Security Planner for the Brazos Valley Region in East Texas, and tasked with coordinating the Ebola response in the 7,320-square-miles surrounding the Bryan-College Station metropolitan area. Acting as a federal liaison between hospitals, public safety, and state government officials, many

The global COVID-19 pandemic has left many state and local governments, hospitals and first responders scrambling to find the medical equipment, hospital beds and resources they need to keep up with the incredible influx of sick patients. With so many new cases and hospitalizations, these organizations are turning to temporary

In my last article on The Last Mile, I looked at the unique communications challenges that exist at the northern border between the U.S. and Canada, which is increasingly important right now with the border closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s not the only border in need of

Earlier this month, in an attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19, the United States and Canada took the unprecedented step of shutting down the border between the two countries. While this sounds like a reasonable and rational step towards stemming the spread of a disease that has —

Having served in the United States Air Force as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC), I understand the importance of situational awareness for conventional and special operations forces missions. During my twenty years of service, I contributed to countless missions in austere environments attached to U.S. and coalition ground forces,

With new federal requirements for location tracking now in place, this free webinar will review the new mobile mesh networking technology solutions designed to address these challenges. Viewers will hear case studies from recent deployments and learn how agencies are already enhancing situational awareness and safety in the wildland today.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are flying high above today’s battlefields, special events, and disaster zones to provide critical situational awareness to tactical teams on the ground. But what happens when that military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) mission or wildfire survey lasts days at a time? Untethered drones can only stay

The past few months have been witness to a number of devastating natural disasters with no end in sight.  Australian firefighters are still battling against a “mega blaze” that has burned more than 12 million acres of land and killed over 800 millions animals. On January 7, Puerto Rico was