schnit
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- Apr 24, 2004
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Mayor an advocate for self-sufficiency
By Dan Stockman
The Journal Gazette
Seeking to avoid the type of widespread chaos that descended upon New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Graham Richard on Wednesday announced a task force to see how Fort Wayne’s disaster communications can be improved.
New Orleans officials were hampered in their response because communications kept breaking down: telephone lines were blown down in the 150-mph winds, cell-phone towers were knocked over, and emergency radios didn’t have enough battery power to last days without electricity. A radio transmitter had an emergency generator, but when it ran out of gas and officials couldn’t reach it with more, it was out of commission.
“The lessons we’ve learned … is a community must be self-sufficient in that first 24, 48 and even 72 hours,” Richard said.
That self-sufficiency rests on being able to communicate, Richard said, and a system that’s as good or even better than most is not good enough.
Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters, who attended the announcement, said officials must use Hurricane Katrina, the London subway bombings and Sept. 11 as examples of how to prepare for large-scale disaster.
“If we can’t learn something from the recent tragedies that have occurred throughout the world, we’ve got problems,” Peters said.
To determine how to do that, Richard is creating a Disaster Communication Response BEST group. BEST, which stands for Building Excellent Systems through Teams, has been used for other city tasks such as examining the ambulance system and city garbage service.
Co-chairing the team will be Lou Dollive, president of the ITT Industries Aerospace/Communications Division in Fort Wayne, and Wayne Iurillo, site executive for Raytheon in Fort Wayne. The team will investigate the city’s current system and what needs to be done.
Iurillo said the biggest issue is not just the system the city has, but how it is used.
“Sometimes it’s not the amount of money you spend on a communication system, but the planning beforehand,” Iurillo said.
The city, county and numerous towns and fire departments have invested heavily in an 800-megahertz communication system designed to let every emergency agency communicate with each other. But would the $15 million system work after a large-scale disaster?
“We need to have redundancy and back-up systems,” Richard said.
Bernie Beier, the city’s homeland security director, said he is “absolutely” confident there is battery power to run the 800-megahertz system for 72 hours, but the system needs to be analyzed to ensure there is no weak link in the chain that would bring it down like dominos.
Beier said that because a great system is already in place, he expects the cost of making needed changes will be minimal.
By Dan Stockman
The Journal Gazette
Seeking to avoid the type of widespread chaos that descended upon New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Graham Richard on Wednesday announced a task force to see how Fort Wayne’s disaster communications can be improved.
New Orleans officials were hampered in their response because communications kept breaking down: telephone lines were blown down in the 150-mph winds, cell-phone towers were knocked over, and emergency radios didn’t have enough battery power to last days without electricity. A radio transmitter had an emergency generator, but when it ran out of gas and officials couldn’t reach it with more, it was out of commission.
“The lessons we’ve learned … is a community must be self-sufficient in that first 24, 48 and even 72 hours,” Richard said.
That self-sufficiency rests on being able to communicate, Richard said, and a system that’s as good or even better than most is not good enough.
Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters, who attended the announcement, said officials must use Hurricane Katrina, the London subway bombings and Sept. 11 as examples of how to prepare for large-scale disaster.
“If we can’t learn something from the recent tragedies that have occurred throughout the world, we’ve got problems,” Peters said.
To determine how to do that, Richard is creating a Disaster Communication Response BEST group. BEST, which stands for Building Excellent Systems through Teams, has been used for other city tasks such as examining the ambulance system and city garbage service.
Co-chairing the team will be Lou Dollive, president of the ITT Industries Aerospace/Communications Division in Fort Wayne, and Wayne Iurillo, site executive for Raytheon in Fort Wayne. The team will investigate the city’s current system and what needs to be done.
Iurillo said the biggest issue is not just the system the city has, but how it is used.
“Sometimes it’s not the amount of money you spend on a communication system, but the planning beforehand,” Iurillo said.
The city, county and numerous towns and fire departments have invested heavily in an 800-megahertz communication system designed to let every emergency agency communicate with each other. But would the $15 million system work after a large-scale disaster?
“We need to have redundancy and back-up systems,” Richard said.
Bernie Beier, the city’s homeland security director, said he is “absolutely” confident there is battery power to run the 800-megahertz system for 72 hours, but the system needs to be analyzed to ensure there is no weak link in the chain that would bring it down like dominos.
Beier said that because a great system is already in place, he expects the cost of making needed changes will be minimal.
