Patent ID: 8681804

Claim:
A system for providing situational awareness involving communication systems which are taken down by a catastrophic incident in which the catastrophic incident occurs at an incident area involving a scene in which an incident is taking place, herein, after the catastrophic incident, an interoperable temporary incident area network modules on a wireless mesh network are used to provide communication between said incident area network modules in the incident area, comprising: a connection module coupled to said wireless mesh network for connecting information communicating by said wireless mesh network to network nodes at locations outside of said incident area, said connection based on detecting inoperability of a communication link impacted by the catastrophic incident to handle all traffic, said connection module including a switching system for connecting said information to an operable communications channel link between said mesh network and said network nodes at locations outside said incident area, selecting an operable communication link being based on the availability of an operational channel link with sufficient bandwidth in view of said catastrophic incident.