Florida Communications Unit

10/14/2026

Florida’s COMU personnel deployed with local agencies are also serving a distinct mission in the Isaias recovery.

COML’s, COMT’s, and specialists from the Lake County Sheriff's Office - Florida, and Polk County Emergency Management are deployed providing base camp communications, and ensuring interoperability for law enforcement agencies deployed as part of the ESF16 Florida Sheriff’s mutual aid program.

These teams come self-contained to provide voice, data, satellite, and on scene maintenance capability to their agencies as well as others who may not have in house capability.

Hundreds of deputies and support personnel have been working in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Walton and Okaloosa counties during the week. Staff pictured collectively have decades of experience in the field and many years of incident response specialist qualifications.

Polk County Sheriff's Office
Florida Sheriffs Association

10/12/2026

While in transit yesterday, COMT Tim Boring from the ESF2 composite strike team stopped to get our nation’s flag taken down and cleaned up.

Teams of dispatchers (FL-TERT), COML’s, COMT’s and other specialists continue our work in the region helping leave things better than we found them. 🇺🇸

10/11/2026

Isaias has moved thru Northwest Florida and strike teams began work today to assist affected agencies across the area. COML’s are also busy coordinating capabilities for mutual aid agencies coming into the region.

Land mobile radio systems form the backbone of public safety communications. These tried and true local networks often coupled with links to broadband wireless carriers are critical in keeping responders in touch with incident command and dispatch.

10/09/2026

MOBILIZATION- A communications strike team of personnel from across Florida departed today for forward staging in Tallahassee. We’ll be there right after the storm to help our neighbors in northwest Florida.

Additional staff are behind the scenes, staffing communications coordination, mission management and AUXCOMM volunteers to ensure positive communications with the affected areas as Isaias makes landfall tonight as a major hurricane.

Personnel from Flagler County Fire Rescue, Nassau County Sheriff's Office, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, and Collier County Sheriff's Office are staffing the initial ESF2 response.

09/28/2026

Last week, Florida was invited to participate in the 2026 Central States Communications Exercise.

A six person participant team was rostered to participate in functional exercise response activities with an equipment (loadout) that was selected, brought and deployed as if an actual incident. Three additional staff were requested by CSCE tasked as exercise special operations group, deputy incident commander, as well as Florida’s SWIC. We also presented one of the pre exercise workshops on deployable trunking systems, of which our state is a national leader in this area.

CSCE holds the largest national public safety communications exercise in the US. This year 32 states were represented, combined with federal partners and vendors totaled over 330 participants.

Thank you to the Central States Communications Association again for all your efforts! We greatly appreciate this venue for learning, networking and exercise ahead of when it’s needed most! 🇺🇸

#101

09/11/2026

Today, we remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001. We honor the first responders, service members and everyday Americans whose courage and selflessness were seen in the moments, days and years that followed.

Twenty-five years later, we continue to remember those we lost, those who answered the call and the sacrifices made in the wake of that day. 🇺🇸

09/10/2026

Recently, communications unit resources assisted Marion County with deployable capabilities to support the Rock the Country 2026 tour.

COML’s, COMT’s and tactical dispatchers worked together and provided on-scene command, tactical, and mutual aid channels, links to the 911 center’s 800mhz radio system and on incident dispatch capability.

Planned events provide unique opportunities for staff to practice proven incident management protocols and hone skills prior to no warning incidents.

06/05/2026

The communications unit was given the opportunity to present this week at Florida’s Training for Emergency Management (FTEM) symposium.

A static resource display, ESF2 capabilities briefing, and the highlight of the week; a PACE planning workshop and thunderbolt exercise on Thursday.

PACE introduces layered communications redundancy planning across disciplines and can be implemented simply using existing resources.

The team had a great time presenting and seeing many friends in the industry. Great job to FDEM training on this leading event. We’re looking forward to FTEM2027!


Florida Division of Emergency Management

05/25/2026

04/07/2026

Florida’s Central Region (5) communications unit staff attended the annual statewide incident management team (IMT) summit recently with our SWIC. Team members from Florida's 7 IMT's networked, attended training, heard from FDEM leadership on plans and training for the 2026 season, and participated in a tabletop exercise.

An equipment cache display familiarized personnel with available resources. Many communications unit personnel in Florida are cross-rostered on these regional IMT’s for flexibility which is key in disaster scenarios.