diff --git a/scripts/run_celery_send_sms.sh b/scripts/run_celery_send_sms.sh
index 1b8ea7de50..e6c32a5d75 100755
--- a/scripts/run_celery_send_sms.sh
+++ b/scripts/run_celery_send_sms.sh
@@ -2,8 +2,27 @@
 
 # runs celery with only the send-sms-* queues
 
+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
+}
+
 set -e
 
+if [[ -z "${STATSD_HOST}" ]]; then
+    init
+fi
+
 echo "Start celery, concurrency: ${CELERY_CONCURRENCY-4}"
 
 # TODO: we shouldn't be using the send-sms-tasks queue anymore - once we verify this we can remove it