Verizon Business Major Emergency Response Incident Team (MERIT)

Verizon MERIT is an elite team of trained personnel ready to be sent anywhere nationally to protect the company’s communications network assets during natural disasters or hazardous materials incidents.

Created in 1992, the Verizon Business Major Emergency Response Incident Team, or MERIT, comprises full-time employees with specialized emergency response management training, as well as experience in the repair and maintenance of communications equipment and networks. Located around the United States, MERIT members have been deployed to protect the company’s network in past emergencies, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, and the 2001 Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax contamination of a postal distribution facility in New Jersey, the Baltimore tunnel fire, train derailments, floods, fires and more.

The teams tactics are geared more towards protecting and repairing or mitigating damage to the telecommunications infrastructure and other assests of the Verizon network rather than rescuing or saving lives.

In a significant HAZMAT/CBRNE event in which a Verizon facility is or maybe threatened, the MERIT team would focus it's HAZMAT skills and equipment and efforts on defending that facility while fire or environmental proetction/conservation HAZMAT teams would focus on saving and rescuing people.

However, the MERIT team, in the interest of protecting Verizon assests, may team up with other HAZMAT teams during a significant HAZMAT/CBRNE incident to stop or contain a spill or a toxic gas release from a transportation vessel or facility.