Emergency Workers Failed To Use New Radio Network

[TechnoDave]

FROM WWW.NBC13.COM


Emergency Workers Failed To Use New Radio Network

Monday, Mar 12, 2007 - 02:19 PM




MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - In the harrowing minutes after a March 1 tornado struck Enterprise and killed nine people, including eight high school students, emergency workers had trouble talking to one another.

The frustration of police and rescue workers trying to communicate occurred despite an $18 million emergency radio communications upgrade installed in Alabama with Homeland Security funds.

The problem wasn't with the new network, however. Communication was snarled because those responding to the tornado disaster were trying to talk on cell phones or walkie-talkies connected to the cell phone system and it was overloaded.

State Homeland Security Director Jim Walker, in an interview with the Associated Press, said people were frustrated, but all they had to do was turn on their radios.

Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychology professor at the University of Alabama, said the problems in Enterprise show how dependent all parts of society, including police and rescue workers, have become on cell phones.

 

[iMONITOR]

Wow, that's unbelievable! :roll:

 

[enine]

Its not that hard to believe at all. I get enough people laughing at the CB antenna on top of my truck that say CB is dead, use a cell phone and those are usually the ones with digital only phones which won't work once you pull off the highway. I go a couple places where my analog cell phone won't even pick up a signal so I realized I needed some form of radio communication.

 

[iMONITOR]

Its not that hard to believe at all. I get enough people laughing at the CB antenna on top of my truck that say CB is dead, use a cell phone and those are usually the ones with digital only phones which won't work once you pull off the highway. I go a couple places where my analog cell phone won't even pick up a signal so I realized I needed some form of radio communication.

What's unbelievable is they were not using their radio! Not even trying it!

 

[mfn002]

Maybe they were interested in "secure" communications :roll:

 

[DPD1]

I have a hard time believing that people trained for emergency response, even on a volunteer basis, would not even try to use the radios they were issued. I have a feeling there's more to the story. I'd like to hear the workers side.

Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Custom Scanner, Aviation, MURS, GMRS, Marine & Ham Antennas -

 

[mancow]

I believe it. I have never been able to get anyone on the radio above the Sgt. level when there's a major event. They don't use them on a daily basis so they don't think to grab one when it hits the fan.

 

[mfn002]

Maybe they did not have enough radios to go around, or immediate access to them. Keep in mind it was a new radio system. It's possible that all the radios weren't delivered and in operation yet.

 

[TechnoDave]

Here is a more in depth story:

From www.al.com

Emergency workers at Ala. tornado failed to use new radio network
3/12/2007, 11:31 a.m. ET
By BOB JOHNSON
The Associated Press


MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — In the harrowing minutes after a March 1 tornado struck Enterprise and killed nine people, including eight students huddled in a high school hallway, emergency workers had trouble talking to one another.

The frustration of police and rescue workers trying to communicate occurred despite an $18 million emergency radio communications upgrade installed in Alabama with Homeland Security funds.

The problem wasn't with the new network, however. Communication was snarled because those responding to the tornado disaster were trying to talk on cell phones or walkie-talkies connected to the cell phone system — and it was overloaded.

"People were frustrated, but all they had to do was turn on their radios," state Homeland Security Director Jim Walker told The Associated Press in an interview.

Most police, firefighters and other emergency responders in Coffee County use Southern LINC Wireless phones and walkie-talkies for day-to-day communications. Walker said that system in Coffee County was jammed in the minutes after the tornado — not just with emergency traffic, but also with people calling to check on friends and relatives.

The manager of radio frequency and construction for Southern LINC, Clay Brogdon, said traffic on the system more than tripled "instantaneously."

"It overwhelmed our network," Brogdon said.

In Enterprise, Coffee County Deputy EMA Director Larry Walker agreed that the communication problems of emergency responders following the tornado were "a cell tower issue" that could have been avoided.

"We switched over to VHF and UHF radios and that system worked fine," Larry Walker said. He said like most people, police officers and other rescue workers have gotten used to using cell phone technology.

"Because of our reliance on it, if it goes down you're in a quandary," Larry Walker said.

Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychology professor at the University of Alabama, said the problems in Enterprise show how dependent all parts of society, including police and rescue workers, have become on cell phones.

"Humans tend to be creatures of habit and our habit these days is the cell phone. It's disabling when technology we have come to rely on is not available to us," Guadagno said.

She said it's not surprising that people would struggle with cell phones, before using the radios.

"Cell phones have become our symbol for communicating and people forget that older and more stable technology is still there," Guadagno said.

For years, law enforcement agencies in Alabama have struggled with radio systems that often would not allow officers in one city to talk to police in the next town or even to their own fire department. To try to fix that problem, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security used $18 million from a federal grant in 2004 to buy equipment that would allow emergency responders using VHF systems to talk to officers using UHF and would span other communications gaps.

Walker said the new equipment had been installed and worked with few problems.

Brogdon said the Southern LINC tower in the area stayed in service throughout the early Thursday afternoon storm and service was never completely lost to Enterprise. But he said because so many people were trying to use the system, many callers were unable to get through.

Brogdon said the company brought in additional equipment from Birmingham and had increased capacity in Enterprise by Friday evening.

 

[DELCOLHFC]

Questions.....

Questions for anyone local enough to have any accurate answers.
Is this new radio system paid for by homeland security (thats all of us) available for the day to day communications for the Coffee County Police/Fire/EMS workers and responders? If it is available are any of the users using it? If some users are and some are not using it, why and why not? If it is not available for day to day comms, why?
There are a lot of very troubling issues exposed by stories like this because the same or similar situations exist in many other location across the country. We as taxpayers must demand that systems put in place to allow improved emergency operations are being used by properly trained responders.

 

[elk2370bruce]

1. The radio system was brand new.
2. There, apparantly, was no training program nor break-in period to accustomize personnel to their use.
3. In periods of high stress, people drop back into comfortable behaviors from previous emergencies.

These facts have shown up in emergency events for years. Where the assimilation and training program for a new system have been accomplished, and has been in-place in other locations, the radios were used and effectively. Simple disaster social psychology continually repeats itself time and time again.

 

[ibflat2]

another angle to this

while all the people on scene march 1st were trying to get people rescued, they were also trying to put a command center up...

Yeah it was a giant mess, I know I was on scene for 6 hrs Thursday night, helping out the technical rescue team..

Lots of small town fire departments, small ambulance companies. Plus throw in responding agencies from Florida and Georgia, and not to forget some that came all the way from Mobile.

Southern linc is a local version of Nextel, with some holes in service in this area...

Now if all the local public serivce agencies where on the system, do not forget about the other users of radios, contactors, tree services (lots of them were there for clean up), tow trucks, gas and other utility companies.

Overwelmed HECK YEAH, it was buried in about 30 seconds, Cell phones were not much better as everyone was calling to say they were ok, or what ever..

While I was on scene, I had 3 differrant scanners in my tow truck, and they were just going from one channel to another solid. I finally set them to a few specialized frequencies, and it helped..

The comments were right on, as this was something that might of had plans for, but it just was such a mess that it really was not something that had ONE TOTAL COMMAND for quite awhile....

 

[RadioJonD]

I wonder how many agenecies had the available interoperable frequencies programed into their radios and had training on how and when to use them.

All the fancy equipment/technology in the world can't replace the simplicity of interoperability! That's all I'll say before I get on my soap box...again!

 

[SAR923]

SouthernLinc is an IDen system that is in daily use by many agencies in Alabama. As a cell phone replacement and secure comm system, it's OK, but the events in Enterprise show it is near worthless in a real disaster, when all such systems are overwhelmed. There are a well established number of VHF mutual aid channels and they are also used on a daily basis since most agencies haven't completely abandoned VHF. The real problem, as has already been mentioned, is the lack of command and control. There seemed to be no established method of requesting mutual aid and many agencies just seemed to show up. Once there, it took a long time for a command post to be set up and to get any frequency coordination going. This once again illustrates that the lowly communications team leader is often the most important person in the ICS system, especially in the early stages of an operation. Although these problems happened to occur in Alabama, the rest of the country faces the exactly the same issues.

 

[trace1]

Once there, it took a long time for a command post to be set up and to get any frequency coordination going. This once again illustrates that the lowly communications team leader is often the most important person in the ICS system, especially in the early stages of an operation. Although these problems happened to occur in Alabama, the rest of the country faces the exactly the same issues.

Just curious if any of the local Amateur radio operators involved with ARES and/or RACES (if there are any in that area) were used as available resources as or in communications support.

 

[CCHLLM]

Well, I can say that I have witnessed more than one member of a responding agency use his cell phone to call the command post instead of using the portable issued to him to follow ICS protocols and go through Comm. As a comm person with 40 years of disaster response under the belt, I can say that without fail, communications is ALWAYS the last thing the planners on the front end and the workers on the business end think about until the shi-shi has hit the fan. And communications planning and training? Well, that seems to be even farther down the list.

Why all this is, I don't know, but when several agencies and entities show up for a large scale mutual aid event, there's always evidence of megabucks having been spent on duty equipment and pretty toys, but seldom do they possess a decent method of communicatiing with anyone, sometimes even among themselves. There are always a gajegazillion varieties of radios on their respective local frequencies for the ones with radios, but damned few with any of the common mutual aid frequencies that could be used, and there are always the ones who show up with not a trace of a radio.

When a group/county/entity gets a new comm system, is there ever a thought of perhaps we might have to interact mutually on a radio frequency or two? Seldom to nearly never in my experience, and when there is, it always seems centered around law enforcement. Do our so-called leaders not realize that big red/yellow truck with all that hose ain't a Crown Vic, or that big box on a van chassis doesn't carry personnel with a baton or a firearm? So what are the answers? There ain't none, 'cuz those of us who are comm people have been having this same discussion for the 40 years I've been involved, and every year there's the same quantity of useless jawjacking followed by the same funding, training, and knowledge vacuum.

Thanx fer lettin' me purge.

 

[rescuecomm]

I was working on getting my squad's portable radios setup with with VTac and Utac. Got UCall and Utac in the few UHF units we have only to find out that no one else in the county has bothered. I am going to work the VTac freqs into the radios as I catch people at the building anyway. As you were saying, when someone says interop in South Carolina, its always Pal 800. The way I see it, if only a couple of local agencies move to 800, then the interop problem just gets worse. Now it would take three radios instead of two to keep track of whats going on. In Pickens County, EMS and LEF are carrying 800 W/T's in addition to the usual stuff, fire depts and rescue are not.

Bob

 

[Steve]

If my memory hasn't failed me, the "new radio system" mentioned is actually several ACU 1000 units scattered across the State. Again barring memory failure, the ACU's are suppose to be set-up for interfacing the existing radio systems, SothernLinc, Nextel and anything else that is used in the State of Alabama. I believe that the ACU installed in the State Trooper Mobile Command working fairly well during the Governor's swearing in this past January. But that was a planned event not a disaster event. Just an old AST PCO's 1/2 cent.

Steve
KD4LCY
KAF9087

 

[trace1]

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security does have an Alabama Regional Incident Support Unit vehicle for each region in the state.

The Interoperable Communications Vehicle system can rapidly establish on site connectivity between disparate radio systems and provide radio-to-telephone connectivity. This ability to cross-band disparate radio nets allows the on-site incident commander the ability to establish and control an on-the-scene ad hoc Mutual Aid Net or Channel. These cross-banded radio nets can further be separated into distinct call groups. The interoperability package also can serve as a radio relay serving to extend the existing tower-based radio system. The system can also provide in-building or tunnel radio extension services. Radios that can be cross linked include VHF, UHF, 800mhz, Trunked, military and other phones.

The Interoperable Communications Vehicle provides the on-site Incident Command Team with High Speed internet access via a mobile satellite link. This satellite is easily employed and uses GPS to find and lock onto the satellite for rapidly established internet and data access. Integrated with a wireless network, the on-site local emergency team with access to the internet via a mobile Hot Spot. This will allow untethered access to email, instant messenger and web based intranets or Critical Incident Management Applications. With access to high speed data, incident reporting and support coordination with offsite agencies can be more easily accomplished leaving radio bandwidth for critical command actions.

The Interoperable Communications Vehicle comes equipped with a cellular telephone base station and power boost amplifier that allows standard telephones to access existing cell phone networks from extended ranges. This package can provide access for multiple phone lines and provides standard voice, dial-up data and fax services.

Installed on any standard 8 ft pickup truck, the system can be dismounted from the truck using an enhanced jack system within minutes. This dismount option allows for full shelter mission functionality and frees the prime mover for other administrative or logistics functions during extended operations. The Interoperable Communications Vehicle shelter provides an environmentally controlled workspace with a command desk console for 2-3 operators, slide-out equipment racks that house the communications and interoperability gear, a storage closet and convenience rack capable of holding a small refrigerator and microwave.

 

[CCHLLM]

NC has a virtual plethora of fixed, mobile, and portable interoperability equipment among the hundreds of agencies and entities, and for all the hardware available to interconnect various radio systems, hardly any agency has any of the common mutual aid frequencies except for a 155 mHz statewide rescue mutual aid channel and a statewide 154 mHz fire mutual aid freq, if they even have that. If you've never had to manage an incident with several operating sectors and staging areas resulting in several levels of comm needs, you have no idea how completely inadequate two common channels can be.

With that said, all the interoperability equipment in the known world will never be able to conquer the hurdles of turf battles, accompanying ignorance, and a lack of realistic planning and proper personnel training. My sincere hope is that VIPER will help remedy or at least reduce the all-too-numerous communications impasses between responder organizations in this state.