For a second consecutive year, DHS Systems lent support to New Orleans’ Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness during the city’s weeklong Mardi Gras celebration.

Hoping to relieve overwhelmed emergency rooms and EMT’s, city officials first purchased Deployable Rapidly Assembly Shelters (DRASH) last year as medical surge facilities. Offering nearly 3,000 square feet, the facilities helped responders answer 1,164 calls for service by the end of the week.

Expecting even larger crowds, officials decided to expand their clinic to support this year’s Mardi Gras activities. Using additional DRASH shelters and showers, officials were able to deploy a 9-bed medical care area and 10-bed, 23-hour observation holding area just blocks away from main parade routes.

A command and control center provided police, fire, EMS and other federal and state agencies a place to coordinate public safety throughout the event as well.

Faced with a million tourists, the largest turnout post-Hurricane Katrina in 2005, officials claim that DRASH allowed the city to properly handle such an influx of visitors while still recovering from the storm’s devastation.

“We’re still rebuilding our health infrastructure and on a daily basis an average wait time for EMS responders in the emergency room is 60 minutes,” explains Matthew Kallmyer, Deputy Director of the Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness. “By having these surge facilities, it greatly reduces the wait time for EMS providers so they can get back on the street and answer 911 calls instead of waiting at the hospital for their patients to receive an empty bed.”

Since first partnering with DHS in 2008, the city of New Orleans has worked with DRASH representatives during Hurricane Gustav relief efforts, the National Weather Service Hurricane Conference and other events held in the city. The longstanding relationship helped make response efforts during Mardi Gras a success.

“It’s been a great partnership between the city and DHS Systems. The company knows our needs and works to accommodate them,” says Kallmyer. “There were a lot of people involved with the planning of this, and all of them were impressed with the help we received.”

From incident command posts to emergency operations centers to decontamination systems, many of the Reeves brand shelter systems utilize the DRASH system. Ranging in size from 109 to 1,120 square feet, DRASH shelters are user-friendly and durable, and easily interconnect so serve organizations' unique needs.