Government Technology

New Jersey County Uses Military Technology to Close the Communication Gap


Submarine Illustration by Tom McKeith
Submarine surrounded by phones

February 4, 2010 By

Copy that.

That is something first responders in Burlington County, N.J., can now say because they are able to communicate during catastrophes. In July 2008, the county's Office of Emergency Management (OEM) began using military technology in its Emergency Operations Center to connect seamlessly with first responding agencies during incidents. Using an integrated voice communications system (IVCS) -- designed for use in the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarines -- OEM staff and emergency management crews with disparate communication devices and on different radio spectrums can speak with one another.

But that wasn't always the case.

Photo: Burlington County, N.J., Emergency Operations Center staff uses an integrated voice communications system to streamline talk groups when responding to incidents/Photo courtesy of L-3 Communications and Burlington County, N.J., Emergency Operations Center.

The Problem, the Solution

Burlington County consists of 40 municipalities and is the largest county in New Jersey. Like many jurisdictions, it had communication barriers when responding to emergencies. And 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina impressed upon everyone that closing the gaps in communication must be a critical part of emergency response and recovery -- those events were a wake-up call for the emergency response community. But with numerous factors that plague interoperability, such as balancing budgets, old technologies and spectrum disparities, how could the Burlington County OEM overcome these inadequacies and let emergency management agencies collaborate with one another to assist citizens?


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