The Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA) was awarded a $630,871 Technical Assistance Program Grant (TAP) from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs.
This highly competitive grant is available to territories, commonwealths and freely associated states of the United States of America through the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The Technical Assistance Program (TAP) Grant provides grant funding for short-term projects intended to meet the immediate needs of the insular areas. Funding priorities include, but are not limited to, projects that foster the development of the insular areas in the following categories: Accountability; Financial Management (including tax collection improvements); Economic Development; Training/Education; Energy; Management Control Initiatives, Safety, Emergency, Historical and Cultural Preservation, and Health Initiatives.
The VITEMA award will be used to upgrade the 911 Emergency Communication Center in both districts.
In VITEMA’s effort to improve operator and dispatcher workflow, processing speed, overall efficiency, and generally improve public safety, the St. Croix and St. Thomas Emergency Communication Centers (ECCs), will get state of the Art NG 911 public safety solutions to meet these requirements.
“Implementing the 911 system upgrade will bring our ECC into compliance. A national standard of NG 911 that consists of enhanced services of 911 call centers, such as Text-To-911, provides for the centers to address and provide service to persons with disabilities and those in situations when it is dangerous to make a voice call to request help,” said Barbara Petersen, VITEMA assistant director. Additionally, this system will be able to send data to dispatchers directly from the field.
VITEMA’s Upgrade Project Provides a Complete Solution that:
- Is designed to industry standards, including the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) i3 standard, with on-going support.
- Provides a redundant and highly available foundation for NG 911 that will support core i3 functionality, both now and in the future. The upgrade also guarantees ongoing i3 compliance for 911 Call Taking CPE.
- Is remotely monitored, secure, resilient, and resistant to cyberattack and penetration.
- Provides the ability to remotely monitor, manage and support the systems on a 24/7/365 basis.
- Provides increased fault tolerance, reliability, resiliency, and disaster recovery through Geo-diverse federated system designs.
“I want to thank the VITEMA Grants Division and Assistant Director Petersen for their forward thinking and diligence in submitting this grant application. Additional thanks to Governor Albert Bryan Jr. for his support in VITEMA’s application process of the TAP Grant. This grant is highly competitive, and we are very pleased to be awarded these funds to upgrade our 911 systems. Finally, thank you to the Department of Interior – Office of Insular Affair for this award,” said VITEMA Director Daryl D. Jaschen.
