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As I go into this adventure as a Communications Unit Leader (COM-L), I will share my experiences here.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Still in Missouri
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Wednesday, August 14, 2013
My First Deployment!
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On Tuesday I flew to St. Louis and then drove over to Jefferson City. Today was my first day at FEMA DR 4130 MO. With lots of meetings and a long check in process, its time to get down to work. Tomorrow we are traveling 5 hours away to evaluate a new remote office location for IT and Communication needs. More to come as this progresses!
Bonus: There is a strong storm brewing out near Africa that looks like it will affect the US. We are maybe 5 days away from going out, to get there 120 hours pre-landfall.
Dash to Nashville?
Last Friday was suppose to be the first day I started my new working late schedule (9:00 to 5:30) in the office. Alas that would have to wait. At 6 a.m. my phone went off with the wonderful klaxon alarm. That ring tone is set aside for just one number: the ENS. ENS is our Emergency Notification System that alerts us to all things of a critical nature. This ENS notice told us to report to the office by 8 a.m. and be in Nashville by 8 p.m. that night. So I jump in the shower, grab some breakfast, and get to the office at 6:45. We start loading up all of our gear including our portable satellite system, the GATR.
We have a briefing at 8:00 and they inform us we will not actually be traveling all the way to Nashville. Instead, we are driving down to the local grocery store, rally there, and return to the office. Once back home, we have to set up an office and start working using nothing but power at our existing offices. I set up three redundant layers of satellite communications (GATR above, BGAN left, and Iridium below), just to prove we are self sufficient. They reviewed all of our equipment and made sure everyone had everything they should need, right down to our clothes. Luckily, they did not count our underwear (this time).
Finally, at noon, they told us we passed (for the most part) and that we could take everything down. We packed everything up, put the stuff away, and then took off for the weekend.
We have a briefing at 8:00 and they inform us we will not actually be traveling all the way to Nashville. Instead, we are driving down to the local grocery store, rally there, and return to the office. Once back home, we have to set up an office and start working using nothing but power at our existing offices. I set up three redundant layers of satellite communications (GATR above, BGAN left, and Iridium below), just to prove we are self sufficient. They reviewed all of our equipment and made sure everyone had everything they should need, right down to our clothes. Luckily, they did not count our underwear (this time).
Finally, at noon, they told us we passed (for the most part) and that we could take everything down. We packed everything up, put the stuff away, and then took off for the weekend.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Made it to DC
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So after that brief time in Minnesota, it was a two day drive out here, stopping overnight in Ohio. While the carpets were getting cleaned at my new place, I spent a couple nights in a hotel and went into work. So far I am still just getting a handle on everything there. There is a lot of new equipment and that state of all of it is unknown. This means testing and evaluating everything - every cord, every plug, every device. For example, I have two really nice NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices. One is perfect and complete; the other had most of the hard drives ripped out of it. But from the outside, they appear identical.
Plus, while I am trying to get a handle on what we do have that is functional, they want to get out in the field. We are their shiny new toy and they want to play with us, not keep us in our box (office). So maybe sometime this next week they will send us out on something small.
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