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First Responder Networks 5 Years After 9/11
stinkymountain writes, "Five years after 9/11, you'd think all of the nation's first responders would be on a state-of-the-art wireless network that would enable police, fire and other emergency personnel to talk to each other in case of a disaster. But they're not -- yet. Network World ran an investigative piece sketching why progress has been so slow, and describing the progress that has been made." The article leads off with a scenario that represents the toughest possible test for a first-responder network. Even the best imaginable networked system might bog down in the midst of "fog of war" situations.
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Reading about how the radios could not communicate inside of certain buildings I wonder if it might make sense to include an "emergency" channel in wireless networking equipment. After all, many warehouses have wireless access points setup for their mobile inventory devices.
This 802.11 emergency channel that could be activated and used by emergency personell equipped with special radios - kind of a "skype-911".
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A local Fire/Police organization was recently trying to upgrade their radios to a newer system. The project failed spectacularly with huge cost overruns and was eventually cancelled. Their solution? Award a virtually identical contract to the same vendor for the same system. The problem is government...wasteful spending brought on by too many years of overfunding. Where a $5 solution would suffice, they ALWAYS spend $500. The solution? I dunno, anarchy maybe.
Why use broadband? I am trying to understand why the SWAT team lost communication in the building? Do they used a centralized system? It is impossible for each SWAT member to talk peer to peer with each other SWAT team member?
Come on people streaming video is nice but not at the expense of calling for help.
Maybe they should start carrying a few simple HTs as back up for their super wiz-bang system.
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Probably the biggest single reason is the lack of available spectrum needed to support broadband wireless devices for public-safety radios.
That is finally about to change. The FCC has mandated that TV stations give up the 700MHz channels and that bandwidth be available for broadband public safety applications. Unfortunately, that switch wont occur until February 2009.
It strikes me that in this article, they're just using 9/11 to shock people into seeing a problem that was *already there to begin with*.
The warehouse shootout they mentioned probably would've happened the way it did, 9/11 or not, and the departments would still have complained that they needed more funding for better comms gear than they can afford.
The federal government not only should have figured out standards for first responder radios, it ought to have provided the radios to all first responders. Any time you hear a politician compare the Al Queda threat to WWII, try to remember that if President Roosevelt had responded in the slow, unfocused manner President Bush has, we would all be speaking german now. In WWII, this country completely transformed its economy in less than 2 years to rapidly produce ships, planes and tanks. In 2006, we can't even get working radios. How the mighty have fallen.
Five years after 9/11, you'd think all of the nation's first responders would be on a state-of-the-art wireless network that would enable police, fire and other emergency personnel to talk to each other in case of a disaster.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have reformed our INS department, so that people who pose no threat could gain citizenship with more ease, and people who might be a threat were deported.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have the most secure airlines in the world, with sensible screening processes, yet we do not.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have had an honest review of our interventionist foreign policies since the end of the cold war, by Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush yet this hasn't happened.
Five years after 9/11 you'd think we would have made more progress in developing our own energy, or finding alternative fuels to use.
The only conclusion we can draw is that government, especially big government moves slowly, and is not doing the will of the American public. The American public is just too distracted to care. I blame world of warcraft.
It appears the article failed to look at all 50 states and only take tidbits from different areas that have an issue. It states that DC is #1 in the nation for preparedness; however, if you check it would be the State of Ohio.
After multiple years (starting well before 9/11) and Millions of Public Dollars, Ohio offically rolled out MARCS (Multi Agency Radio Communication System)in 2004-05. The system has towers in all 88 Ohio counties and bosts coverage of 98% of the state (some of the terrain in Southeastern Ohio prevents total coverage). MARCS has enabled all agencies, whether it be the State Highway Patrol, EMA, County Sherriff's, City Police, and other responders, to communicate with each other without restrictions.
MARCS has also been studied by other states that are in the process of implementing their own first responders network. The article would have been better if it looked at all 50 states because while those mentioned might not be ready, I am sure there are others Like Ohio that have deployed or in the proccess of deploying multi-agency networks.
Another problem is that in many cases, those who make the decisions on what to buy have no experience in using the equipment. They believe whatever the sales reps tell them and the end users get stuck with equipment that works poorly while getting told that there is nothting wrong with it. Public Safety personell are cursed with equipment that does not work as well as the equipment they used to use.
I know this because I work in public safety and we have this problem. 800 Mhz systems are being pushed heavily right now, yet nobody thinks of the problems. Sales reps gloss over problems, saying that these systems will work so much better than the VHF systems they are replacing. But these new radio systems work in the same general frequency range as the cell phones everybody has. How many times are your calls dropped because you drove into a valley or walked into a building? How would you like to be an officer searching for an armed suspect when that happens? I have had that happen, and trust me, it is not a good feeling when it does.
The sales reps will say you don't need any extra tower sites for the new system, what you have will be more than enough. But for decent coverage in the UHF band you need your antennas on the high ground so you can cover the low areas of your coverage area and you need a lot of them. Cell phone companies understand this and put their towers on the high ground near areas of heavy usage. Unfortunately, public safety does not get anywhere near as many, and those that they do have are often set up where they already have land, such as the back yard of fire stations. These are frequently not in the best location geographically for radio coverage, and money is not spent on obtaining decent transmitter locations.
Sales reps don't care about this. All they care about are sales. They know that once the sale is made, they are out of there and it is no longer their problem, but the buyer's. Sounds a lot like the IT field, doesn't it?
There are 4 types of liars (in order):
4. Liars
3. Pathalogical Liars
2. Car Salesmen
1. Sales Reps
So remember the Dispatchers saying, "Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts."
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
The reason why it hasn't happened is that WE DON'T WANT IT OR SEE THE NEED FOR IT.
I do NOT want cops polluting my tactical channels with their blather. Do any of you own scanners? Take a listen to EMS, Fire, Law Enforcement, and Air Traffic channels. None of these groups want anybody else to contend with when the shit is hitting the fan. The vocabulary is different. The lingo is different. The culture is different. It's hard enough at an emergency scene to keep traffic to a minimum between the various commands, let alone adding several more channels that someone has to monitor, and shout over.
This is why NIMS and Unified Command exist. The various agencies can talk to each other IN PERSON since they're face-to-face, and then relay the messages via their radio frequencies to their people.
We don't want it. We don't need it. If you want to see how we operate in an emergency, ask to be an observer at the Command Post the next time your local jurisdiction does a mass-casualty drill. Airports do them on a grand scale once per year to once every two years. The regional Counterterrorism Task Forces do them once per year. Your regional Emergency Management Agency does it once per year. Watch and learn. We don't need more crap on the radio.
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Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
...we have an old VHF system. The city fire department, police department and sheriff office in our area are all on digital 800 Mhz systems. In order to upgrade the county fire departments, there would have to be enough money to upgrade handheld radios of over 250 firefighters at about $800 a piece. Not to mention to repeaters and such that some departments have. Don't forget the personally owned radios that the firefighters have in their vehicles, too. Of the five volunteer departments in the county, with about 50 certified firefighters (they test and train just like the paid firefighters), new radios could break any budget unless federal grant money comes in.
Sig: I stole this sig.
I'm an officer in a fire department. A much smaller department of course -- but we all study the same issues and see the same FEMA, NFPA, etc. bulletins.
The problems at the trade center were not so easily blamed on radios. Katrina related issues in New Orleans however, were influenced a great deal by radio communication problems.
That said, here are some things to consider:
1. Most departments are NOT like FDNY. 86% of firefighters in the USA are "on-call" not live in full timers. 96% of departments in the USA are staffed in part or in whole by on-call firefighters, and 40% of the population is protected by these "volunteers". Focusing on FDNY and their issues on 9/11 isn't doing a service to the real problem.
2. With Katrina, every cell tower, every radio repeater, and all the power for thousands of square miles was down. Trucks with portable backup repeaters couldn't operate in the deep water and muck. With no communication, fire crews are acting as islands and cut off from knowing where emergencies are or from getting help. Police had the same problem, but the added issue of a populace which would rather fight them then help them.
Now, taking that knowledge in hand, let's talk about what has happened since 9/11 in my little department. Since 9/11 here's what's changed:
1. Every member of my department has their own radio at all times. This is unusual for rural departments - or was. These radios are not cheap. They run about $1500 each. Remember, not just any radio will do -- they must be "intrinsically safe" (meaning no internal sparks) and must stand up to some fairly serious abuse.
2. Every member of my department (and most in other departments I've spoken to) has complete the now required "NIMS" (National Incident Management System) training and certification process at levels 100 and 700. Most town leaders have also completed this training. Officers such as myself also complete NIMS 300, while chiefs complete several more. This system is set up so that in an escallating emergency all responders are on the same page from a language, radio traffic, procurement, authorization, authority, and responsibility perspective as an incident grows from a single unit response to a multi-state task force. The system is patterned after a very successful program used for years by the forest service.
3. Although most towns still use their own frequencies on their radios, in our area all the towns which are adjacent and most which are one town removed are pre-programmed on our radios. There is also a statewide non-repeated frequency so that any firefighter on the fireground has a way to communicate.
4. I am told, though I have not seen, that for very large incidents equipment exists that allows high level incident management teams from the federal level to respond and "slot in" a radio from each local jurisdiction. This device acts as a switch of some kind, bridging the radio systems on the fly. I'm told a decision on how far down the chain that technology will be pushed is still in the works.
5. Even in our little town of under 10,000; we've gotten together with nearby towns and drilled at mass casualty and hazardous materials incidents.
Now, if you think there are more things we should do, consider that most "volunteers" (remember, that's 86% of firefighters) put in more than 50 hours a year of unpaid training time as it is. Where were you?
The people who understand the failings in the 911 response but are not part of the chain of command are other firefighters. All of us, around the country, can point to things the FDNY did wrong. It's easy to do after the fact. We're also the most reluctant to do so. Our brothers may have made mistakes, but they did a lot of things right in the face of terrible danger and stress. We're reluctant to point fingers. That doesn't mean we don't discuss it among ourselves and in our training.
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