AccuWeather speaks with Cory Davis of Verizon Frontline about the company's role in helping connect first responders, so they could conduct public safety in the South during the recent hurricanes.
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00:00Corey Davis is vice president with Verizon Frontline. Thanks so much for joining us, Corey.
00:05Yeah, a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
00:07First, can you tell us about the Verizon Frontline
00:10crisis help across and what you guys do exactly?
00:16Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, though, I want to, you know, our thoughts are with the
00:19communities and the families that have been impacted across Florida and the entire South.
00:24So a huge thanks to all the first responders, the local state, local federal law enforcement,
00:29they've been working around the clock supporting these life-saving missions.
00:34Really, what we've done is we partner year-round with public safety agencies. We've held over
00:39nearly 70 exercises with state, local, and DOD. So this is something that we plan for year-round.
00:45We have a saying that we don't want to pass a business card during a gray sky event,
00:49and we want to know who is who and has that capability. Year to date, the crisis response
00:55team has over 1,200 responses. We've been able to deliver over 7,400 solutions to 590 agencies
01:02across 46 states. Incredible the mission, the work that you do. Since Hurricane Helene,
01:08how have your teams been supporting public safety agencies across the impacted southeastern states?
01:14Yeah, absolutely. So it's been a massive effort across all of the Verizon network and recovery
01:19teams who have been working around the clock with those first responders to help repair and
01:23restore that damaged infrastructure. So we've had 160 responses, and we've been able to provide
01:29nearly 600 solutions to over 150 federal, state, and local public safety agencies. And those
01:35solutions include things like drones, smartphones, routers, mobile hotspots, and portable satellite
01:41assets. They're all in support of emergency response and recovery operations. And really,
01:46our main focus for Helene has been in that western North Carolina, greater Asheville area.
01:52It's been an amazing effort across all Verizon teams. And again, I want to thank all the first
01:56responders that are out there supporting the communities. Yeah, we echo that here too at
02:00Acura, and thank everyone who is working together to help those communities. With Hurricane Milton
02:05and some of the impacts arriving tomorrow and landfall early, early Thursday morning,
02:10how are your Verizon frontline teams preparing to respond across Florida?
02:14Yeah, absolutely. So we've been watching this storm for the last couple days. We actually
02:19have teams that are in Florida right now staging equipment, like portable generators, because we
02:24know commercial power failure is going to be an issue. We have folks staging network mobile
02:29satellite assets as well. And we're also doing things like refilling generators and making sure
02:34that fuel transport is ready to go. So we have teams locked and loaded. We're also supporting
02:40many of the most critical emergency operation centers across the state of Florida, and we are
02:45in lockstep with the government agencies there in the local community.
02:49Wow, what an important perspective you just brought us. Corey Davis, Vice President
02:52with Verizon Frontline, thanks again for joining us.
02:55Thank you. Stay safe.