diff --git a/scripts/run_celery_no_sms_sending.sh b/scripts/run_celery_no_sms_sending.sh
index 7a16de2111..f0669c7d39 100755
--- a/scripts/run_celery_no_sms_sending.sh
+++ b/scripts/run_celery_no_sms_sending.sh
@@ -1,9 +1,31 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
+# runs celery with only the throttled sms sending queue
+
+init()
+{
+     # Wait for cwagent to become available.   
+    while :
+    do
+        if  nc -vz $STATSD_HOST 25888; then
+            echo "CWAgent is Ready."
+            break;
+        else
+            echo "Waiting for CWAgent to become ready."
+            sleep 1
+        fi
+    done
+}
+
 # runs celery with all celery queues except send-throttled-sms-tasks, send-sms-tasks, send-sms-high, send-sms-medium, or send-sms-low
 
 set -e
 
+# Check and see if this is running in K8s and if so, wait for cloudwatch agent
+if [[ -z "${STATSD_HOST}" ]]; then
+    init
+fi
+
 echo "Start celery, concurrency: ${CELERY_CONCURRENCY-4}"
 
 celery -A run_celery.notify_celery worker --pidfile="/tmp/celery.pid" --loglevel=INFO --concurrency=${CELERY_CONCURRENCY-4} -Q database-tasks,-priority-database-tasks.fifo,-normal-database-tasks,-bulk-database-tasks,job-tasks,notify-internal-tasks,periodic-tasks,priority-tasks,normal-tasks,bulk-tasks,reporting-tasks,research-mode-tasks,retry-tasks,send-email-tasks,service-callbacks,delivery-receipts