Reliable communications help safety forces keep residents and vacationers in this coastal community safe.

Duck, North Carolina, is a thriving coastal community, nationally recognized as one of America’s top family-friendly beaches. This beautiful town is on a peninsula bordered to the west by the Currituck Sound and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. It’s home to fewer than 1,000 year-round residents, but the population swells to 35,000 during the summer. 

Duck Police Chief Jeffrey Ackerman has served as the town’s chief for five years and heads a department of 15 officers. He’s seen many changes during his 27 years of law enforcement and Chief Ackerman’s pride in his officers is apparent. “All our people are service-minded. They understand how unique our environment is and all strive to balance tourism with having to be the police, and they do a great job of it.”

Summer population spikes bring unique challenges

Maintaining peace in a town with thousands of vacationers is not without its challenges. “Whatever we did the previous seven days is unknown to the new people coming in. It's a totally new population every week, so you can’t use traditional tactics and techniques,” he said. “And when a crime does occur, you’ve got at most seven days to solve it before that person's no longer in the community. So, it presents some real challenges.”

Staying abreast of law enforcement technology presents another challenge. “When I started 27 years ago, everything was done by pen and paper. We didn't have computers in our cars, and the only cell phone we had was an old bag phone that we passed around from one shift to the next. We had beepers so they could get ahold of us on our days off.” 

Chief Ackerman’s predecessor, Chief John Cueto, was an early adopter of technology, including FirstNet®, Built with AT&T – the nationwide broadband network designed and built for first responders. FirstNet provides law enforcement, fire service, and emergency medical services (EMS) personnel with the latest technology for faster response-time and keeping their communities safe.

The Duck Police Department continues to rely on FirstNet. “We’ve embraced FirstNet and found more uses for it and more ways to support what we do, especially in a place vulnerable to natural disasters and just being rural in general,” he said. 

Secure, high-performance emergency communication 

Deputy Police Chief Melissa Clark said integrating FirstNet technology was a breeze. “It was so seamless, and it certainly proved its worth last fall when Hurricane Helene hit the western part of the state,” she said. “If somebody wasn’t a believer before, I think that experience was our ultimate buy-in.” 

Chief Ackerman sent officers to assist communities that were hit hard by the hurricane. People in devastated communities had almost no way to communicate, which worried him. “It is a little unnerving to send people away to a place with no cell service and no landlines,” he said. “But our vehicles have FirstNet Cradlepoint routers in them, so I was able to know where our officers were at all times.”

The routers act as a hub for secure, high-performance communication during emergencies. They are designed to provide reliable and secure internet connectivity for first responders with priority access for the FirstNet network, particularly in emergencies. 

The routers were a blessing because the cruisers’ two-way radios did not work. “As law enforcement, we had invested so much money in our two-way radio network, but it was obsolete up there. There was no tower standing, no generators, no nothing,” Chief Ackerman said. “So all our investment in something that was supposed to be there for natural disasters was completely useless. But FirstNet worked.”

Duck officers quickly deployed FirstNet Satellite Cells on Light Trucks (SatCOLTs), which are vehicles with mobile cell sites that connect via satellite and do not rely on a commercial power supply. “They were able to call in, so we knew they were okay and arrived safely. Knowing they're okay was huge for me. And then, more importantly, for them to be able to get in touch with their families and let them know they were okay.”

A game changer after the hurricane

Deputy Chief Clark noted that FirstNet connectivity helped many residents in western North Carolina in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene. “Our officers were able to help Miss Helen, who was in her eighties and all alone. Her husband had been taken to the hospital the morning of the hurricane, and she had no way to communicate. She lived just above one of the campgrounds that was annihilated, and her family didn't know if she was dead or alive,” she said.

Duck officers were able to let her talk to her son and daughter, as well as her husband in the hospital. “She was on the phone for probably an hour and never lost service. So it was a game-changer. The weight of the world lifted for that family,” she said. “FirstNet worked. The signal was steady.” 

Chief Ackerman pointed to a photo in his office. “Here are our officers with Miss Helen, who is making the very first phone call to tell her son that she was alive. For several days, he thought she had perished in the storm. This picture will hang on my wall long after my retirement. It’s very meaningful.”

The officers from Duck also shared their FirstNet phones with other first responders. “FirstNet wasn’t as widely used out that way, and a lot of the responding officers (coming from all over the state and country) didn't have FirstNet,” he said. “I think we were at a huge advantage because we had it. And the FirstNet deployables filled a gap for a lot of folks.”

Since the hurricane, Chief Ackerman has seen an increase in agency adoption of FirstNet technology. “After their experience, it has kind of snowballed,” he said. 

Much more than a cell phone

Chief Ackerman is pleased with the responsiveness of the FirstNet team. “There has never been a time when I didn’t get an answer when I called or texted,” he said. “That's what we take away from FirstNet. I receive calls frequently from other carriers attempting to sell their version of FirstNet. And it's fun for me now because I start quizzing them on all the things that they provide, and they don't provide any of what FirstNet provides.”

He likes the relationship his department has with FirstNet reps. “There have been times in the infancy when we ran into some technology issues with FirstNet, and our team was able to elevate things to high-level people. You don't see that from many companies anymore.”

In a small town, Chief Ackerman said, technology purchases have to be weighed carefully against budget limitations. “A lot of the things we want to do get shut down for funding reasons. It doesn't mean we won't keep trying. We’ve learned a lot about FirstNet, how much more it is than just a cell phone, and you want more and more of that. If we have a catastrophic hurricane, we’re going to need these things.”

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