A Race Against Time
FEMA's Denver Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) Team deploys to North Dakota
March 23, 2009 --Record snowfall and saturated ground have set the stage for possible major flooding in North Dakota. MERS vehicles are deployed.

Norm Winterowd, Denver MERS Chief:

Today we are taking four vehicles. We are going to North Dakota; we will be going to Bismarck initially with this equipment, unless the IMAC team has someplace else for us to go. But we are very flexible.  We are scheduled to go into Bismarck but we can go wherever they need us.

We provide emergency telecommunication across a wide breadth of needs. Primarily we set up field offices; we have operations, logistic, and telecommunications folks.  These vehicles behind us are equipped with satellite equipment.  We can provide streaming video capabilities, as well as voice over the internet voice over; called voice over IP for a wide range of communications. 

Disasters come in many different flavors and colors but they are pretty much the same for us every time.  We are very used to doing our job. We feel we are very good at it. 

For more information, visit www.fema.gov