Disasters rarely happen at convenient locations, crises cannot always be managed from air-conditioned offices, and emergency locales often preclude the use of conventional communication and transportation facilities. In order to respond effectively, immediately post-disaster, requires the ability to live, work, and communicate globally from the disaster site. Traditionally, to meet this need and protect lives and livelihood as well as to effectively manage a business impacted by a natural or man-made disaster required the use of truckloads and pallets of office machines, communication equipment, radios, and generators and/or specially designed and expensive command and communication vehicles. Historically, only well-funded governmental organizations or large corporate businesses have had the resources to acquire and maintain such mobile crisis management vehicles. Nevertheless, smaller business companies, not-for-profit entities, as well as smaller governmental organizations also need mobile crisis management capabilities. The goal of Project Nocoma is to meet this need in as cost-effective manner as possible.

How might a small business, NGO, or governmental organization use a mobile command post? The following are three real life examples:  

1. A natural disaster occurs in the USA and a Church, which provides disaster relief as a part of its ministry, wishes to transport two semi trailers of food and clothing to the disaster site. A mobile command post and personnel are dispatched with the trucks and trailers to help coordinate command and control during travel and distribution.
2. A four-lane highway bridge falls into a large river in a rural area of a state and sixteen people are dead. Friends and family, about 50 people so far, are arriving at the accident scene. The state’s mental health agency decides to send a mobile command post and personnel to assist these individuals during the body recovery process.
3. A hurricane strikes a city and an Aunt Jens Bakery Plant is partially destroyed. The city's utilities are off line and won't be functioning normally for at least a week. Management decides to send a mobile command post and personnel to assess damage to the plant and to initiate the businesses recovery.

CMC, Inc. has embarked upon the design and development of an affordable, cost-effective, mobile command post for the small business, NGOs, or small government organization. A survey of an advisory panel of experts with business, disaster, and law enforcement experience resulted in the following list of requirements:

With these design characteristics in mind, in 2005, CMC, Inc. built and tested a prototype. To date the Project Nocoma team has been quite satisfied with how this prototype has performed. The prototype has been tested both in disaster scenarios as well as in actual disaster situations. In fact, we believe that we have now proven that any organization can possess mobile crisis management ability for a far smaller capital outlay than is typically expected. In conclusion, CMC, Inc. is available to consult with any business organization interested in obtaining cost effective mobile crisis management capability.

For a more detailed discussion regarding the actual construction of Project Nocoma, click on the topics below.

• The Vehicle

• The Command/Support Module

• Crisis Communication & Information Technologies