- "What if." Bell participates in emergency response simulation
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Emergency response personnel coordinate their efforts in a simulation of a terrorist attack. Communications played a critical role in the exercise and Bell services successfully met the high expectations.
"What if." Bell participates in emergency response simulation
The scenario: terrorists hijack a truck loaded with chlorine, which they plan to smuggle into the United States. Cornered in a small Québec town, the terrorists threaten to explode the chlorine. With lives hanging in the balance, are plans in place to deal with the emergency?
This was the question we helped answer by taking part in "Double Impact 2005," a joint Québec/Vermont emergency exercise in Saint-Armand, Québec, near the U.S. border. As emergency response personnel converged on the village, communications played a key role. Pierre Benoit, Bell's Regional Coordinator - Emergency Management, coordinated teams from Mobility, Mobility Radio, Infosat and Bell wireline to ensure that communications services met expectations.
The exercise was a special challenge. For one thing, the town of Saint-Armand has no cellular service. This meant moving in a mobile unit at a moment's notice, adding phone lines to the first responders' command centre in the town hall, and expanding capacity to ensure everyone could talk to each other through the emergency.
Our teams came through. "Communications functioned normally throughout, despite high demand and difficult situations," says Pierre. That's good news because as an essential service provider all the emergency agencies depend on us.
