Florida's Hurricane Ian Response Included Rapid Cloud Call Center Deployment

In the aftermath of a hurricane – or any natural disaster – local residents need emergency services, temporary housing, cleaning companies, food and clothing donations and…call centers. Natural disasters bring on an unprecedented amount of state, local and federal government aid and responses, and most of this aid is coordinated through call centers.

The State of Florida announced the opening of a fully operational cloud contact center for Florida’s Division of Emergency Management (DEM) to provide essential services for citizens in need during and after Hurricane Ian, which struck the southwest region of Florida late last month, leaving behind billions of dollars in destruction.

Within 72 hours of its deployment, the DEM emergency contact center scaled to 100 agents, supporting thousands of calls with less than five minutes of average wait time. At the technological level, the new call enter was equipped by cloud communications solutions provider NWN (News - Alert) Carousel.

“Within fifteen minutes of our new contact center being launched, we received over 50 calls from the public needing help,” said DEM Director Kevin Guthrie. “Our citizens who called were trapped in their homes, stuck in flooded vehicles, and needed rescuing. With the new system, we were able to quickly identify their location and deploy local law enforcement resources for a wellness check or rescue operation. I want to thank the entire DEM team and NWN Carousel for their efforts before, during and after Hurricane Ian.”

When the hurricane hit, President Biden granted the State of Florida a Major Disaster Declaration for all of Florida’s 67 counties, which granted the state FEMA Category A and B funding that enabled DMS to transition its volunteer-based answering services to NWN Carousel’s integrated services through their SUNCOM contract vehicle includes the company’s Cloud Contact Center, Unified Communications (News - Alert) and The Experience Management Platform solutions.

NWN Carousel’s contact center has transformed Florida residents’ interactions with DEM by providing essential information about insurance and other services made to them. The state noted that the Florida governor’s office is receiving real-time analytics about DEM call volumes and resolutions leveraging NWN’s Experience Management Platform reporting.

Edited by Erik Linask