TX TERT Deploys to Isaac-Ravaged LA

St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana
- picture courtesy of Wikipedia.com 

St. John the Baptist Parish , LA – Hurricane Isaac officially made landfall on Tuesday, August 28th in Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River after churning off the coast for almost 24 hours with a forward momentum of just 5 miles per hour. Isaac produced an 11-foot storm surge, sustained winds of almost 70 mph, produced substantial flooding, and left over 600,000 customers without electrical service just in Louisiana. Over 13,000 homes were damaged and at least five people died in the storm in Louisiana.

On Thursday, August 30th, the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) requested assistance for its telecommunicators who had been on-duty in their 9-1-1 center for 40 hours without relief. Most of the telecommunicators were also victims of Hurricane Isaac’s damage but they had been unable to leave to check on family or their property.

Eight members from the Texas TERT (Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce) were deployed to assist St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office PSAP. 

Telecommunicator Emergency
Response Taskforce
- picture courtesy of NENA

TERT is 9-1-1’s version of mutual aid. It was created to provide assistance when a local PSAP or its personnel are severely affected or overwhelmed during times of catastrophe or disaster. It was first conceived after the 9/11 attacks. Six North Carolina PSAPs came together, and with the approval of the North Carolina Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (NC NENA), NC TERT was formed and officially adopted by late-September 2001.

NC TERT’s first out-of-state deployment was September 2005 when it deployed for ten days to St. Tammany Parrish, Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina. The successes of this deployment lead to the National TERT Initiative and later the National Joint TERT Initiative which had the support of both NENA and APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officers). Within a year, over half of the States had developed and adopted TERT programs based on the NC TERT model.

• TERT Team Provides Support To Isaac-Affected Louisiana PSAP