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November 4, 2021 — Hawaii is one of the most unique states in the United States. The state’s climate and geography pleasantly set it apart from the other states in the Union. The factors that set Hawaii apart also characterize its emergency management and pose unique challenges for the EOC managers and other response professionals across the islands.
The County of Maui is comprised of the islands of Maui (the second largest island in the State), Molokai and Lanai. As the only multi-island jurisdiction in the State, the County of Maui’s scope of operations for the EOC includes the challenge of coordinating emergency responses to these three islands.
Maui County has partnered with Veoci to continue expanding the operations of its existing EOC. As many municipalities across the US already do, Maui County will use Veoci going forward as a virtual EOC to enhance all emergency operations in and outside of events. Additionally, Maui County joins a growing family of Veoci customers in Hawaii that includes the Hawaii Department of Transportation and the County of Honolulu.
The county houses the only EOC on the island. As a result, the Maui County EOC brings in a lot of personnel and has to coordinate communications between all stakeholders while building a common operating picture. Bringing Veoci into the county EOC and developing a digital response space will help strengthen the EOC team’s ability to respond to emergencies.
Information sharing and a common operating picture are essential pieces of every response regardless of location and team. Veoci, as a virtual EOC, makes it easy for stakeholders to participate and submit relevant information to other response participants. After the Maui County team finishes the implementation of Veoci in the county EOC, they can be sure these two elements are always present in responses.
“In the past, our emergency operations center partners have used FEMA’s Incident Command System to coordinate emergency response and recovery efforts between multiple county, state, federal agencies, and non-governmental organizations,” Herman Andaya, Administrator of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, said.
“It was upon the recommendation of Mayor Michael Victorino that we survey various technologies aimed at enhancing our ability to maintain situational awareness, foster a common operating picture, and coordinate resources and response activities, especially in a COVID environment.”
“After an exhaustive search, Veoci was selected as the platform that would best fulfill our needs in the EOC as well as MEMA’s daily operations,” Andaya continued. “With nearly 80 partners in our EOC and hundreds more in the field, the challenge has always been the collection and sharing of information needed to allow our leaders to make critical decisions during emergencies. Through Veoci, we will be able to better collect and manage information, improve our planning capabilities, and create the documentation needed for FEMA reimbursements and the development of improvement plans. We look forward to incorporating this technology to complement our EOC processes and further strengthen our operational readiness.”
“We’re very excited to see Maui County join the Veoci community and implement their virtual EOC,” Mark Demski, Senior Account Executive for Government at Veoci, said. “More importantly, this implementation will help demonstrate how well Veoci connects people in the middle of a response and how large communities can collaborate to create an ecosystem of emergency preparedness and response.”
About Veoci: Veoci is a cloud-based platform for emergency management, business continuity, team collaboration, and daily operations, designed to meet the decision-making and communication requirements of multiple teams at many locations. With stringent security, highest availability, and quickly scalable performance, Veoci is designed for institutions and organizations of every size and complexity. The company recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.
