9/11, Katrina anniversaries highlight radio interoperability problems
Government grants have done little to improve municipal communications; New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Tulsa provide models of ongoing difficulties
Perhaps it is a case of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Have emergency responders failed to develop integrated emergency radio systems? Roger that. The anniversaries of the 9/11 attack and Hurricane Katrina bring the issue to bear. Here is how the AP described a problem that is becoming all too common across the homeland security sector: “While the hurricane debacle brought new immediacy, action has remained scarce beyond the creation of more joint panels and task forces that, like their predecessors, have been bogged down by disagreement over how to do it, how to pay for it, and the frictions that typically arise whenever multiple arms of government ‘work together.’” That the reporter chose to put ‘work together’ in quotes says a lot in and of itself.
Take the case of Philadelphia. Brotherly love has done nothing for the city’s emergency radio systems. “The police and fire emergency radio communication systems are unreliable on the underground sections of the city subway. The ambulance dispatching system does not allow city rescue crews to communicate directly with hospitals,” reports the New York Times. Consider also the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Reports the Tulsa World: “The state is spending $28 million to extend an 800-megahertz radio signal linking first-responders across the state. While the radio channel will cover a large swath of Oklahoma, key cities such as Broken Arrow and Oklahoma City would be dead to the signal without a frequency patch.”
What is to be done? DHS already offers grants through the Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program (SAFECOM), but the program has little oversight or coordinating authority. Jim Carafano of the Heritage Foundation offers a few suggestions, neatly summarized for us by Christian Beckner of the must-read Homeland Security Watch blog:
1. Put first things first
2. Open emergency management frequencies as dual-use spectrum
3. Don’t send money; set standards
4. Buy services, not infrastructure or technology
-read more in this New York Times report; read this Tulsa World report;
see also Jim Carafano’s Heritage study and Christian Beckner’s analysis
