The St Jude’s Day storms in October, followed in December and January by even more extreme weather conditions, have been described as the worst storms to hit the UK since 1987. A tidal surge greater than the one seen in 1953 together with scenes of devastation, power loss to thousands of homes and damage to property have been reported in the media.
The Airwave Network and Service are critical to the work of the emergency services during severe weather. The company has robust plans and procedures in place that are exhaustively tested and practised to ensure the best possible support is on hand for the first responders.
“The Airwave Network performed faultlessly in our experience of
deployments in all areas of Great Britain over the last month or so,”
RNLI
Airwave’s severe weather planning response is very mature: the company is prepared for every eventuality and reacts in terms of customer requirements. Due to the power cuts, at one stage 75 of Airwave’s sites had no power, but all remained operational due to the Network’s unique back up system.
“Only the Airwave Network could have provided the communications
required between command and such disparate assets,”
RNLI
“Emergency planning is part and parcel of our response suite – the Airwave Service is essential to the command and control of the emergency services. Our field and service centre teams worked tirelessly: the preparation, efforts and inbuilt resilience of the Airwave Network means that our customers report little or no impact on their service,” says Mark Jones, Airwave’s Head of Business Continuity and Planning.
“The Airwave Network is secure and highly resilient, with a unique backup system in place to ensure our customers are in contact during the most testing of situations.”
