DCCV provides mobile communication anytime a catastrophe hits.

But, with power lines down, microwave towers out, coupled with police and fire department transmission antennas damaged, the situation can quickly become untenable. That’s where the Defense Department’s Deployable Communications Capabilities Vehicle {DCCV} comes in to save the day.

Recently, the DCCV made a stop to Naval Support Facility Dahlgren as part of the Naval Support Activity South Potomac’s role in serving as an auxiliary base for the Joint Forces Headquarters of the National Capital Region of Washington D.C.

‘‘This vehicle can be deployed anywhere to assist military and civilian personnel in man made or natural times of disasters or emergency events,” said Tim Bennett, installation program manager for emergency services at NSASP

‘‘The (vehicle’s) personnel can monitor weather trends and analysis to assist civilian and military in obtaining equipment resources, search and rescue, maritime needs, personnel assistance and link to two military bands and four civilian radio bands and cross patch communications,” he added. ‘‘Personnel can also provide commercial local, long distance, and DSN (defense switching network) phone service. It provides both classified and unclassified network, internet and identifying needs too.”

The DCCV is owned and operated by the U.S. Northern Command, out of Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo.; and U.S. NORTHCOM’s Director of Communications Kevin R. Bell was on hand here with the DCCV to explain its capabilities. He said that, in the case of a national emergency, an initial response capability will put ‘‘eyes on the ground” with the DCCV’s four-man team quickly and will be able to hook up with any civilian and or military communication equipment or devices including video, phones, radio, data (computers, blackberries, etc.) as well as communication satellites. The DCCV is air deployable and can be fully operational in less than a half hour.

‘‘This vehicle was here at Dahlgren before as the star of one of the JWID (Joint Warfare Interoperational Demonstration) shows,” Bell said. ‘‘We carry everything that is needed to respond to any emergency, rapidly and responsively!”

‘‘While at Dahlgren the DCCV was remotely hooked into the Building 911 (Emergency Operation Center) fiber network and hooked up a transit case allowing the establishment of another future cell of remote operations {up to 150 work stations} in addition to the 25 Joint Forces headquarters laptop work stations inside our EOC,” Bennett noted in demonstrating the extended capability of the DCCV.

He added that the ‘‘development of this future cell main mission is to stay ahead of any adversary, such as the National Level Exercise Hurricane currently being supported by NSF Dahlgren.”