Upgrade of HPD radios may wait 5 years
Existing system doesn't directly connect officers with the county
Jan. 20, 2007, 10:18PM
By ROSANNA RUIZ
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Five years after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington made clear how important it was for local law enforcement and emergency responders to communicate in a disaster, the city of Houston remains outside a regional radio network of more than 500 agencies.
More than 10 years after city officials began talking about the need for "interoperability," a Houston police officer still cannot push his mike button and talk directly to patrol deputies at the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Instead, officers must rely on county dispatchers to send out the call. When county dispatchers are not monitoring that channel, a city dispatcher must contact his counterparts by phone.
Now, after a Department of Homeland Security report called the city's communication system a vulnerability in the event of a terrorist attack, city officials say it still may be five years before the admittedly outmoded radio system gets an upgrade.
"Ever since 9/11, the big concerns in connection with disaster management revolve around interoperability. If there is not a system in place that facilitates interoperability among various jurisdictions, then I don't think Houston is where it needs to be," said Phillip Lyons, a criminal justice associate professor at Sam Houston State University and director of its Texas Regional Center for Policing Innovation.
"We all realize that when something bad happens, you mobilize all of law enforcement regardless of agency type. If (agencies) can't communicate with the Houston Police Department, then you really can't count those people as being on board."
Steven Jones, executive director of the First Response Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes for advanced communications systems for police, fire and other agencies called Houston's incompatibility with other local agencies "incredibly alarming."
White defends system
Mayor Bill White scoffed at the criticism, insisting the city remains well prepared for disasters. He noted that the city's radio system withstood Hurricane Rita when more than a million people evacuated.
''I think that there tends to be an overemphasis in Washington on hardware and an underemphasis on the planning and cooperation and ability to improvise by our community," White said.
But the fact remains, plans to upgrade the city's emergency communications system have moved at a molasses-like pace. Consider that Houston police have been able to communicate directly with the city's firefighters only since 2003.
By contrast, Harris County has continually upgraded its radio system after a $6 million consolidation in 1989. Through the end of 2005, the county had spent about $41 million on the system. About $13 million of that came from federal grants.
Today, some 500 area agencies and municipal departments, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, Coast Guard and the Port of Houston, are hooked up to the county's regional system.
The city has looked at the issue through two studies — in 2003 and another last year that cost about $725,000 in Homeland Security grants — which estimated that the upgrade would cost about $150 million.
Communication vital
As the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington made emphatically clear, emergency response crews must be able to communicate with each other during disasters. In New York, commanders were unable to radio firefighters to direct them to evacuate the World Trade Center before the towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
By contrast, the emergency response at the Pentagon has been hailed as a model to emulate. The ability of first responders to communicate with one another under a unified command has been cited as a key success that day.
The Department of Homeland Security, in a recent report, said it considers systems interoperable if they can achieve "on-scene ... voice communication among all first responder agencies."
"We believe in a major calamity no one single entity can address what is happening," said Steven Jennings, Harris County's Information Technology chief information officer. "The key to the future of public safety is interoperability for people to communicate seamlessly with each other."
Finding the frequency
The county now operates on 800 MHz frequencies. The city uses 400 MHz.
In 2009, the Federal Communications Commission will set aside 700 MHz frequencies for emergency responders. For the county, that will mean building on its current system and hardware. The city, however, would be starting from square one.
City officials estimate the cost of achieving interoperability at about $150 million. About a quarter of that would be covered by bonds approved by voters last November. Federal funds and other sources would be needed for the remainder, the mayor said.
"If the public allows me to keep the job for the next three years, I do want to put in place a strategy and contracts and a financing plan to get us into a state-of-the-art public safety communications system," White said.
White cited three reasons for the delay in upgrading the city's radio system: The city avoided spending tens of millions on a "false start" before FCC emergency frequencies were made available; other emergency response needs were more pressing, such as training, equipment and personnel; and the overhaul would cost too much.
"It's simply a very large budget item," White said. The estimated cost "would be the same amount we spent on capital improvements, in either parks or libraries, for the entire city for a period of 15 years. These are large investments of money."
Former Councilmember Bruce Tatro suggested intimidation may have stymied efforts to upgrade the radio system.
''I think they saw the enormity of the issue and they said this will take a substantial network change," Tatro said. ''There was no concentration on small (steps) to solve it in the interim."
Electronic getaways
Although on different frequencies, Houston emergency personnel and others are able to talk to their county counterparts through the use of electronic gateways or patches. Those are specific channels made available to city and county dispatchers to connect the two agencies onto the same frequency.
"The gateways and patches can be characterized as interpreter devices," Jennings said, "where the city's 400 MHz system can talk to our 800 MHz system."
But, the system is not without its limitations.
''It's not the ideal system," said the First Response Coalition's Jones. ''Gateways are temporary solutions ... they do connect disparate systems and will, in fact, enable first responders to communicate with one another, but it's not instantaneous."
Accepting proposals
By late spring, the city will begin accepting proposals to build its system, said Dennis Storemski, director of Houston's office of public safety and homeland security.
"We do have radio communications with our partners in the region," Storemski said. "We can communicate ... once we get the new system we will have a more dynamic, more robust system."
rosanna.ruiz@chron.com
Upgrade of HPD radios may wait 5 years
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