Automating Cooperation
Aug 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Michael Fickes
Cooperating communications systems
Incompatible communications systems prevented fire, police and other first responders from cooperating as much as possible on Sept. 11. As a consequence of those problems, Sprint-Nextel formed an Emergency Response Team (ERT) in the summer of 2002. “We contributed to the recovery efforts on 9/11, but we believed that we could have been more effective with a more organized approach,” says Matthew Foosaner, director of Sprint-Nextel's ERT. The ERT stands ready to re-establish a communication network that has suffered a massive failure.
Four hours after Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans, Foosaner and his ERT had landed in Baton Rouge, La., and began building what became “Sprint City,” a command center installation that provided its own 400-kW power station, showers, restrooms, a mess hall, a medical installation, WiFi communications, 5,000 gallons of fuel, functional access control technology and leased helicopters. Sprint City's population grew to about 350 people.
Katrina is the only natural disaster in U.S. history that caused a catastrophic failure of all critical infrastructures, including communications. When the New Orleans Police Department lost its land/mobile radio system, the Sprint-Nextel ERT deployed wireless phones and Satellite-based Cell-On-Light-Truck (SatCOLT) equipment, which provided the police with interoperable, tactical communications. The SatCOLT trucks stood in for damaged transmission infrastructure by bouncing signals off of satellites to reach unaffected cell and radio transmission lines.
Overall, the ERT equipped 7,600 first responders from more than 75 federal, state and local governments with interoperable handheld devices.
For example, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) sent 150 troopers in 150 CHP cars to assist in the rescue and recovery efforts. Their services were so desperately needed that they didn't have time to set up their own land/mobile communications system. “We deployed 150 wireless communications devices, which enabled them to literally roll directly into the recovery operations and coordinate their efforts with other first responders,” Foosaner says.
The ERT also provided interoperable communications gear for secondary responders called in to dispose of trash and to rebuild energy, water, sewer, road and other infrastructures, helping private companies perform important public assignments.
Emergency public notification communications
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Sandia National Laboratories of Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., are designing and testing a pilot alert and warning system they hope will improve on the current Emergency Alert System (EAS). Known as the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), the system is being tested in several states on the Gulf Coast during this year's hurricane season.
While EAS delivers audio-only messages over radio and television, IPAWS can send alerts by voice, text, e-mail, and video to virtually anyone anywhere, including those with disabilities or who do not speak English. FEMA's aim is to deliver targeted alerts and warnings to more communications devices so everyone that needs to be can stay informed any time disaster strikes.
Sandia is working with emergency management staff in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Mexico to understand specific message-targeting capabilities and needs, and various public alert and warning communication options for multiple communities of interest across federal, state, local and tribal organizations.
Among the innovations offered by IPAWS will be geo-targeting, the ability to alert precisely defined geographic areas. “There are technologies that enable geo-locating down to an individual cell tower,” says Ron Glaser, program manager for IPAWS at Sandia. “Your cell phone would ring, perhaps with a special tone, and you would receive a text message.”
According to Glaser, to receive cell phone, e-mail and pager alerts, members of the public must, at least for now, opt-in by signing up at a Web site and specifying the kinds of alerts they would like to receive.
By and large, the responsibility for emergency alerts lies with state and local governments. In the case of a national disaster, the President has the authority to bypass the states and warn the public, but if the emergency doesn't rise to that level, the state and local governments must handle the alerts. Sandia and FEMA are creating the technical architecture for the system so that state and local systems will interoperate and communicate with federal agencies as needed. Once the architecture is established, the federal government will identify equipment that will interoperate across the national emergency alert network.
The new IPAWS system will include the deployment of an enhanced Web Alert and Relay Network (WARN) that provides emergency operations staffs with collaboration tools, public access Web sites and alert and warning notification facilities. WARN also includes an Emergency Telephone Notification (ETN) component that automatically calls all residents in a selected geographic area. A Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Notification System (DHNS) that provides information to the hearing impaired using American Sign Language videos can be sent across the Internet and transmitted wirelessly to personal communication devices.
Millions of people employed by thousands of organizations contribute to the nation's Homeland security endeavors. Access control, communications, mass notification and other security technologies are evolving to enable the cooperation such massive undertakings require.
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© 2010 Penton Media Inc.
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