| ||||
|
Bad things can happen if agencies can't talk Paul
Davidson WASHINGTON -- Many public-safety agencies around the country cannot communicate on their radios with agencies in neighboring jurisdictions because they use incompatible equipment -- a gap that could lead to tragedy. Sometimes even police and fire agencies in the same town can't communicate. The problem is underscored during
major fires, car chases and other incidents that draw response from
several communities. "No one should lose his or her life because we cannot
communicate," says Derek Siegle, an FBI manager and member of the Public
Safety Wireless network, an ad hoc group working on the problem.
Examples of miscommunication:
* During rescue efforts after the
1995 Oklahoma City bombing, local police, suspecting there might be a
second bomb in the tattered building, ordered everyone to evacuate. State,
federal and local fire officials did not get the message for several
minutes -- until they were told in person. Fortunately, there was no bomb.
* After an Air Florida jet plunged
into the Potomac River in 1982, Arlington, Va., fire and rescue workers
sped to the scene, then tried in vain to call for help from Washington,
D.C., counterparts.
* During a 1999 fire that destroyed a
row of shops in Ellicott City, Md., local fire officials could not talk to
counterparts from neighboring counties. Runners had to relay messages from
firefighters at the front of the building to those in back. "It makes it
really hard to do business," says former Howard County fire chief Jim
Heller.
The heart of the problem: Analog
radio systems built for specific frequency bands, such as 400 megahertz,
can't connect with radios on other bands. And digital systems from
different manufacturers generally cannot talk to others at all because
they are based on different digital standards.
Help may be coming. Some neighboring
agencies have bought new 800-megahertz radios together to
be compatible.
And the Federal Communications
Commission recently set aside channels in the planned 700-megahertz band
for communication between agencies. The FCC is requiring makers of digital
equipment for that band to use a common standard and also to make radios
able to communicate with late-model analog equipment.
Meanwhile, emergency officials make
do by sharing radios, carrying cellular phones, patching calls through
dispatchers using phone lines and setting up makeshift command centers at
the scene. "You do whatever you have to do at that moment in time," Heller
says. |