The Juan de Fuca (JdF) region was the area hardest hit by the recent ‘bomb cyclone’. CREST Director and the Capital Region’s JdF Emergency Management Program Lead, Jeri Grant, was in control and on the ground quarterbacking the community response efforts in her jurisdiction. One of the primary challenges she faced was severed communications services, the result of wide-spread power outages. During the storm, CREST engineer, Nathan Eden, was point-guard coordinating CREST’s response efforts in support of all first responders. CREST was well prepared. When the back-up generator supporting the Rogers Communications infrastructure in the Juan de Fuca region began to struggle, Nathan deployed CREST’s emergency back-up generators to keep the network online and ensured that the communication redundancies built into the public safety network throughout the region performed as expected. For Jeri Grant and those emergency response professionals who were relying on CREST to keep them connected to their colleagues throughout the multi-day duration of the storm, the CREST network handled the heavy demand and performed solidly without interruption.
During the ‘bomb cyclone’ event, the Juan de Fuca zone alone saw an 80% increase in network demand compared to the same day one year ago
During the ‘bomb cyclone’ event, JdF Emergency Management Lead, Jerri Grant, reached out to CREST’s General Manager. “As I work off my (cell) phone, the Emergency Program has been using CREST radios to get information related to this storm event from our different communities. The CREST network has proven to be a valuable resource to us time and time again.”
Congratulations to Jeri Grant and her team for their calm, coordinated response delivery. Thank you to our region’s first responders on the frontlines for their skilled dedication to the public during and after the intense storm. And to CREST engineer, Nathan Eden, well done.
