On July 23, 2019, a tornado touched down in South Yarmouth and Harwich. OpenCape Chief Technology Officer, Janek Chrzanowski, shared "Last evening was one of the most taxing and challenging weather events the network has experienced to date. We had no fiber related issues and the only clients experiencing difficulty were tied specifically to lack of power issues. It is situations like this where the planning and OpenCape's superior design really set us apart."
OpenCape has continued to expand the number of Police, Fire and EMS locations it services, so being available and reliable during peak times is mission critical. Former Director of Client Solutions, Angela Hurwitz, who was spearheading OpenCape's efforts to expand further into the public safety arena commented. "Our first priority was to ensure that the Barnstable County Multi-Agency Coordination Center (MACC) continued to have service throughout the evening", despite seeing wind gusts in excess of 90 mph. "OpenCape redundancies worked perfectly last evening, from the fiber design to our generators and data-center," Hurwitz said. The OpenCape Emergency Response team was handling calls and issues well into the early morning hours to ensure that our public safety clients were up and running.
Notwithstanding, OpenCape's business customers continue to enjoy the benefits of ultra-reliable connectivity. Despite having fiber on damaged poles, service was not interrupted except for those clients without redundant power service or generators. OpenCape's Director of Operations, Dan Collins, stated "Whether it's a small business or a large organization, it is our job to ensure they are up and running, regardless of the situation. OpenCape is unique in that we proactively monitor and call out to customers that we see may be experiencing an issue. Many times this allows us to identify a problem before the customer even realizes it."
This is just one of the benefits of having a locally owned organization, staffed with people who live here and care about great service.
OpenCape continues to monitor and review every client's unique situation to ensure there are no lingering issues that could impact their service. "This is just one of the benefits of having a locally owned organization, staffed with people who live here and care about great service." stated OpenCape Chief Executive, Steve Johnston. "It is also worth noting that we have to acknowledge the great work that Eversource, NGrid and local towns have done in maintaining pole lines and clearing downed poles and trees quickly to ensure service is not impacted."
