Hi Frank,
Power Outages Hamstring Most Emergency Communications
By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS and AMY SCHATZ, Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, September 1, 2005
Millions of dollars have been spent to upgrade emergency phone and radio communications systems since the Sept. 11 attacks, but Hurricane Katrina exposed a simple but nagging vulnerability: power.
In Katrina's aftermath, communication between different emergency-response agencies has been nearly impossible in places. Cell towers, emergency communications equipment and 911 centers in many locations are inoperable because they are underwater.
Federal agencies have churned out several reports detailing standards for first-responder phone and radio equipment and formed countless working groups. But this week officials in Washington have had trouble gathering information about the situation in hurricane-ravaged areas because communications are so sporadic.
States received about $830 million for interoperable telecom equipment in fiscal year 2004 alone, according to the Department of Homeland Security. But many communities have been slow to upgrade equipment so that it operates on the same radio frequency. The Federal Communications Commission has set aside some frequencies for use by emergency responders, but much of it isn't available yet because it's still being used by television broadcasters. In many smaller communities, emergency responders still use equipment that operates on different frequencies, making it difficult to talk to one another.
In New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas, the biggest problem, however, has been far simpler: There's just not enough power.
The problem worsened yesterday, as radio and phone equipment batteries began to die. "Field personnel are beginning to lose power on the radios because they don't have any way to recharge them. It's not looking good," says Courtney McCarron, spokeswoman for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials.
Emergency generators powering some cell towers and underground phone switches, which route traditional phone calls, may also soon begin to go dark. "The issue is a power issue at its core," one FCC official said.
For customers, phone service will take even longer to restore because phone companies are mostly concentrating on getting emergency services operational.
Sprint Nextel Corp., the wireless carrier that has a large business with governments and emergency personnel, said that a long-distance switch in the area reported flooding and had to be turned off, affecting long-distance calling. Wireless towers, which require electrical power, are running on battery backups and in many cases are about to expire, if they haven't already.
In Plaquemines Parish, near New Orleans, the 911 center was beneath six feet of water and had to be abandoned, according to a spokesman from Motorola Inc., the company that supplies gear to the parish and many other agencies in the affected area. After the walls to the center collapsed, the remaining workers floated out using life jackets. "Due to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina, many of our customers' emergency equipment remains inaccessible or underwater," said Jeffrey Madsen, a Motorola spokesman.
Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Ill., said it has shipped more than 2,300 pieces of communications equipment -- including portable radios, fully charged batteries and chargers -- to the affected areas. To cope with the lack of working transmitters in the area, Motorola has also deployed three emergency communication trailers to the region.
Sprint Nextel is sending five satellite trucks to the region to help restore some communication for emergency services, the company said. An emergency team is also being sent with 3,000 walkie-talkie handsets. The response team, which includes hundreds of engineers and technicians, will move into the area once it is declared safe, the company said.
In the meantime, the communication gap is being filled by a low-tech solution: ham-radio operators. A number of those stranded, or friends and relatives of those missing, are contacting ham-radio enthusiasts, who in turn are telling local emergency personnel about the location of those in need.
"Obviously, the communications system is not working because people are contacting us, even to dispatch police calls," said Allen Pitts, spokesman for the American Radio Relay League, a ham-radio association located in Newington, Conn. Earlier this week, after a New Orleans police officer was shot while attempting to prevent looting, a witness was unable to reach 911 emergency dispatchers but contacted a ham-radio operator, who in turn reached local police to respond to the fallen officer, Mr. Pitts said. |
