The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat.

If you have never seen one in real life, you could be considered fortunate but you have certainly seen one on television. Mobile Command Vehicles (MCV) or trailers are perhaps the coolest looking equipment in the world of emergency management.

As the world is falling apart and people are scattered throughout the streets screaming and searching for loved ones, you can see smoke rising on the horizon and the sound of helicopters almost blocks out the sound of our hero and star of our film arriving in a futuristic looking mammoth vehicle crowned with an array of antennas and satellite dishes. Emblazoned across the side of the vehicle are the words: MOBILE COMMAND.

Somehow, you know everything is going to be okay.

Yep. That’s the “glory story” and you see it all the time in movies. What you don’t see is the blood, sweat and tears that go into designing and planning to make that motorized beast what it is. What you can’t comprehend is the hundreds if not thousands of hours that went into creating a vehicle that would really work when the world was falling apart.

Mobile command vehicles are deployed in real life to improve or reestablish communication and coordination during emergency incidents and special security events nationwide. The mobile command vehicles leverage satellite and internet access, as well as interoperable radios and video capabilities to improve communication between government assets and other federal and local response and support assets.

When it comes to the Feds, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), Federal Protective Service (FPS) is responsible for protecting property owned, occupied and secured by the U.S. Government as well as the people on that property. The Mobile Command Vehicle (MCV) program supports the Federal mission through the provision of mobile, on-site platforms for command, control and communications during terrorist attacks, natural disasters, National Special Security Events and other similar occurrences. The MCVs can rapidly deploy to any location in the continental United States where the communications infrastructure is inadequate or has been disrupted, or where enhanced interoperability among law enforcement agencies is needed.

Incident management in the nation’s current threat environment requires mobility, interoperability among public safety agencies, reliability and cost effectiveness. Mobile Command Vehicles meet this need. MCVs can support daily operations as well as special deployments of the FPS Crisis Response Teams and other organizational elements. These highly specialized vehicles augment the capabilities of the Fed’s dispatch and call centers, known as MegaCenters, by allowing them to remotely dispatch units and link different radio systems together without the need to actually send personnel to the scene. Each MCV also provides an environmentally controlled platform for on-scene command and control functions, with small conferencing areas, video-teleconferencing, data analysis and processing, and information acquisition and management for situational awareness and common operating picture development.

Now, when the situation is more localized such as a major tornado in a city or a massive flood or hurricane, the MCV can be seen operated by agencies such as a Sheriff’s office, police department, fire department, county government, State police and others. Each of these MCV’s is different, supporting a different role in response. Each vehicle or trailer has to be designed by the people that will use the vehicle and by specialists with years of experience in response so that no detail is overlooked.

One cannot simply go to an RV dealer and order a command vehicle. Each vehicle must be as “smart” as possible and designed with it’s future environment in mind which takes the heart and mind and soul of true emergency managers.

Do we want to sleep in it? Do we want desks? Can we design a desk that becomes a bed? We need monitors but can they be stowed away? How do monitor the outside from the inside? Will we need to prepare food in our vehicle? What is the worst environment this vehicle could encounter and how do we design the vehicle for that?

At X-Bomb we have that heart, mind and soul. Aside from just being designers, X-Bomb creates a collaborate team for each build that includes specialists in different fields of response as well as emergency management personnel that can lend insight into the design and execution of the building plans. We strive to partner with vendors that don’t just specialize in the “cool stuff” like emergency lighting but in the realms of communications, software, electronics, security, finishes, shelters, tools, portable response kits and much more.

It all sounds like a lot of work because it is, but we guarantee that a well-thought-out design that has been created with budget, efficiency, effectiveness and quality in mind can change the way you play the game.

Since I have spent so much time on the vision, design and building of a command unit, I want to talk about something that I have seen kill many projects for years. Over-engineering.

While we want to make sure that you have everything you need when you need in your trailer, the worst thing you can do is over-engineer. Today’s trend is to have the very best of everything even when you really don’t need EVERYTHING. Folks, it is still a trailer.

Before getting into detail, let me talk to you a bit about my background.

I have spent over 3 decades in emergency response and disaster response. I have spent the last 15 years in research and development of responder products and solutions. I have made every mistake there is to make, sometimes at the altar of marketing. Make it big so you look big, right?

My original background was in architecture and mechanical drafting with a short stint being spent with GM. I have been a part of developing over 40 products that are still presently on the market and have been part of design teams working on mobile command units and response trailers for over 15 years.

Everything I am sharing is not my opinion; it is my experience.

So what is over-engineering?

If we go to the strict definition, over-engineering refers to the fact of designing a product in a more complex way than necessary:

Over-engineering (or over-engineering, or over-kill) is the act of designing a product or providing a solution to a problem in an overly complicated manner, where a simpler solution can be demonstrated to exist with the same efficiency and effectiveness as that of the original design.

Nobody over-engineers with bad intentions. On many occasions, over-engineering happens because we try to anticipate the future and be ready for the unknown. That is actually our job in emergency response, right?

The reality is that nine times out of ten, that “just in case” never comes. But along the way, we have lost valuable time and increased the complexity of the project, something that we will carry throughout its whole life.

Another cause of over-engineering is often a lack of experience in the actual field. I have been under-impressed by many of the engineers and creators of today’s “fancy” command units as I find out they have TONS of experience in manufacturing or in mechanics or communications but have NEVER responded to a disaster so they have no idea what their creation will experience!

In general, the more senior you are, the less prone you are to over-engineer because you’ve already lived through quite a few situations where artificial complexity has exploded in your face. At X-Bomb, we don’t always have the answers or the experience so a large part of your custom-designed trailer or vehicle will be the investment of the folks we bring in that have the expertise your unit will need.

Here are some things I have seen cause over-engineering:

Loosely defined requirements. If an engineer does not have a well-defined problem, he will tend to overengineer to protect himself from uncertainty.

Boredom can also lead to over-engineering. Youth may also be a factor. If an engineer does not have exciting challenges to face, he may end up complicating any problem simply by trying something new. The younger the engineer or designer, the more “extras” get added simply because they are “new” and exciting but necessarily tested or proven in the field.

When I said at the beginning of the article that overengineering kills projects, I was not kidding. It has two particularly perverse effects on any system.

On the one hand, it increases development costs. If our engineers do not choose the simplest solution to address a problem, our costs in time and money increase, preventing us from completing the project.

On the other hand, it also increases your maintenance costs. Simple is just that…simple. When we complicate it, the complexity can grow exponentially, impacting our iteration speed.

If you are wanting a desk in your trailer that also becomes a bed that also becomes a fully stocked bar but can also be used as an awning on the outside of the trailer you are looking at the wrong company. We won’t do it because you shouldn’t want it.

Over-engineering kills products and projects. Much more than the absence of good engineering practices.

I love listening as much as I love talking. Listening is one of the things that brings me joy and laughter. One statement I love to hear is “I want all the bells and whistles”. When I hear this I usually will laugh out loud at the very thought. At almost 60 years of age, I cannot think of two times I have used a bell and only a few more times when I used a whistle. What on earth would I do with them all?

You only miss 100% of the naps you don't take

This blog post appears courtesy of EG Weiss of EG Weiss & Associates.

It is a pretty non-stop world isn’t it? According to studies, first responders are among the world’s most sleep-deprived professionals just due to the nature of their work. Have you ever considered how important sleep is?

Now place those same responders in a community that has just suffered a major disaster. It is all-hands-on-deck and while after the first 20 hours, everyone wants sleep, nobody dares to say anything out loud! We search for a corner where we can lean up against a stack of water bottles and try to catch a few seconds of sweet sleep.

Of course, moments after we drift off, somebody needs that water so we move to another location, then another and finally end up under a table or in the front seat with our head against the steering wheel.

As sleep deprivation can lead to and exacerbate addiction and other serious health concerns, learning how to make sleep more efficient should be a priority, especially in the immediate post-disaster hours and days.

Did you know firefighters, paramedics, police officers, and other first responders are highly susceptible to sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, insomnia, and work shift disorder? Yep! And that is because of normal shifts and normal stress! Imagine what the disaster environment is doing to our responders.

I know about this first-hand and yes, a lot of it is self-inflicted. We go for years living on the edge, bouncing from high to low adrenaline levels, sleeping with one ear open waiting for the next call. Responder ego shows itself as we boast that we can outlast each other despite feeling the effects of this run-a-way train more and more.

As we develop sleep disorders, they go unnoticed until suddenly we are seeking treatment for anxiety, cardiovascular health issues, or diabetes.

All of this got too real for me this past week. A simple visit to the doctor’s office suddenly became one of the worst events of my life. Kidneys. Sleep disorder. Diabetes. Blood pressure. Arthritis. I was overwhelmed with a rush of memories of all those nights without sleep, the nights sleeping wet or cold (or both), the hours spent snoring into a duffel bag and the hundreds of times I woke as I fell off of a poorly designed cot.

According to an old 2015 study from the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (JCSM), over 35 percent of firefighters screened positive for a sleep disorder.

The combination of low-quality sleep, exposure to trauma, and long unusual hours wear down brain function to a critical point, threatening the lives of first responders globally, among the primary health risks that those with poor quality of sleep face, suicide poses the highest threat to survival.

It is crazy how important sleep is!

There are so many hidden threats in the post-disaster environment from infection to death but I truly believe that the most dangerous is that of lack of sleep.

Too often I see the result of counties, cities or agencies being over “budget-concious”. I cannot even remember the times I have been presented with a wonderful shelter set up for responders but found that there were $30 cots set up for us to sleep on.

On more than one occasion I have watched literally dozens of responders opt for the floor when presented with a small, narrow and uncomfortable cot.

As we discover more and more about the importance of sleep and the long-lasting effects of poor sleep on responders, it is time we stop playing around when it comes to making purchases in preparation for disasters.

Knowing you will need a shovel in the future, would you go to Dollar Tree and purchase a plastic sand shovel? Of course not! While perhaps unpalatable financially (since you don’t know exactly when you will ever use it), you head to Home Depot and buy the toughest shovel you can find. So why do we continually make poor choices when it comes to responder comfort? Is it because we expect that they expect a hard life so why not?

Three weeks after a tornado could be the three weeks a responder develops a sleep disorder, nerve impingement or becomes ill due to lack of sleep or poor sleep.

Sleep is rest and until we develop robots to do the job of America’s heroes, we need to start protecting them for the long haul.

By making the right choices in favor of rest and rehab, we are actually increasing the responder’s ability while under duress.

Lack of sleep has been proven to affect a responder’s ability to feel for others.

Sleep deprivation and emotional fatigue can hit anyone, but first responders and health-care workers are especially vulnerable due to the demands of the post-disaster environment. And that includes the recent pandemic- an excellent example of how little thought we put into planning for responder comfort.

Day after day we saw pictures of heroes sleeping in hallways and on pallets of masks or gloves.

The bottom line is that this is not a financial decision, it is a healthcare decision.

Yes, you can go and purchase the cheap cots and set them up in neat little rows inside of a gymnasium or shelter and call it “responder rehab and lodging”. Where the rubber meets the road in this argument is in the fact that when you don’t sleep, you can’t react as quickly, remember information, solve problems, make plans, multi-task or regulate and understand emotions as well as you could if you were well rested. We should probably decide what kind of responders we WANT out there.

FEMA defines a cot as a portable, lightweight structure that is easily assembled to accommodate a person in a supine position. Gee, thanks for that. I am picturing a surfboard. Anyone else see it? Ironing board? Pile of cardboard?

Instead of doing the minimum when planning for how we will accommodate our first responders during major events, why don’t we define what a bed looks like and should feel like in consideration of the life of the one lying in it? It was just a few months ago that I was down at Del Rio, Texas and visited with National Guardsmen that were sleeping sitting straight up in their Humvee. They told me they had been doing this for weeks! What was so sad was that their job was to accompany migrants to a shelter where there were nice cots!

We have gone to great lengths in this country to look after vulnerable populations without a thought to the highest-risk population we have in the wake of a major disaster and the issues that could result from our lack of insight and understanding.

It is not that these responding men and women WON'T work around the clock and sleep on the concrete. They will. It's how they are wired. The point is, they shouldn't have to when there are choices.

G'nite Ya'll!

Towing Safety

As we observe Trailer Safety Week (June 4-10), here are some tips from TrailerSafetyWeek.com.

Driving Tips Towing involves the interaction of a number of components: the driver, tow vehicle and trailer. Each of these contributes to the towing experience and safety of the combination. The driver is responsible for selecting the right tow vehicle and trailer for the load, hitching the unit, loading, steering, speed, and braking. All components of the tow vehicle and trailer effect towing. Safe and proper driving is a critical piece of trailer safety. Drivers should be focused and limit or eradicate distractions.

Hitching There are various devices used to hitch a trailer to a tow vehicle. Understanding hitches and the proper hitch for the trailer and load is important to ensuring a safe and smooth towing experience. After deciding the appropriate hitch system, properly hitching the trailer to the tow vehicle will help to ensure the combination remains attached, and should the coupler fail, correctly attached safety chains should be your next line of defense.

Loading A properly loaded trailer is easier to control. The most common reason for losing control of your trailer is improper loading. Weight distribution, both front-to-back and side-to-side is vital as is cargo securement. However, it is important to note that trailers may be built for hauling specific items, such as a cement mixer, and the trailer owner's manual might advise a specific loading technique for safe towing that does not fall within general rules of thumb. Remember, the first step in loading should be to read your trailer owner's manual and follow its instructions.

The Right Tow Vehicle And Trailer Combination Towing a trailer will impact how any vehicle drives. The larger the towed object in comparison to the tow vehicle, the greater the performance impact will be. Thus, knowing what your tow vehicle is capable of towing is just as important as selecting the right trailer. Vehicle manufacturers provide a “tow rating” which is the maximum weight of the towed trailer when fully loaded. The GVWR of the trailer should never exceed this tow rating, even if the trailer will not be fully loaded.

Trailer Components Understanding the many components that make up your trailer is important to ensuring you are ready to tow safely. It is important to understand the importance of adequate brakes, properly inflated and rated tires, crossed safety chains and working lights in order to tow safely.

Cargo Securement Improperly secured cargo can cause weight redistribution that could cause trailer sway or additional stress on the trailer and tow vehicle as well as the possibility of losing cargo on the roadway, creating a danger for other drivers.

Trailer Maintenance Regular trailer maintenance is critical to ensuring the longevity of your trailer, as well as making sure you are able to tow to your destination safely. Before towing, make sure your trailer and its many components are in safe working order. Worn or broken trailer parts can cause loss of control and injury may result. You must inspect, maintain and service your trailer regularly to insure safe and reliable operation.

Compliance Verification Program The National Association of Trailer Manufacturers (NATM) has made it easier for consumers, dealers and manufacturers to ensure compliance with safety standards through its Compliance Verification Program (CVP). NATM compiles Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and industry best practices concerning trailer construction and uses those standards to verify compliance at member facilities on a biennial basis. Participation in, and the successful completion of, the program is a mandatory component of NATM membership.