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http://www.braddye.com/newsletters/2012 ... _2012.html

AN IMPORTANT LESSON
NOT LEARNED

When I went to work for Motorola in 1974, one of the first things on my training schedule was to watch a film called, The Everglades and After. A 28-minute color film that told the story of the rescue of 78 survivors of a jumbo jetliner crash in the Florida Everglades on December 29, 1972. It shows the heroic efforts by hundreds of people from military and civilian organizations to rescue and preserve the lives of the survivors. It is a unique example of disaster relief operations on a large scale involving the use of helicopters for mass evacuation of casualties and the emergency medical services of six hospitals.

IT WAS MASS CONFUSION

The lesson we were supposed to learn from this tragedy, was that all the many different agencies that responded to rescue survivors were equipped with radio communications equipment, but none of them could talk to each other. There were many state, county, and city vehicles, as well as military vehicles that responded down a few narrow roads in the Florida everglades. The result was a giant traffic jam.

A GIANT TRAFFIC JAM

There were police, fire, ambulances, and every kind of emergency vehicle you can think of on land and in the air—and all the radios were useless because most of them were on different frequencies. We were assured that this would be corrected in the future. That an inter-agency communications plan would be adopted to ensure orderly and efficient communication among all public safety agencies.

PUBLIC-SAFETY RADIOS USELESS
Well, nearly 40 years have passed and I don't think very much has been done to solve this problem. Inter-agency communications today is mainly over cellphones and everyone knows that they don't work in times of emergency because everyone is trying to use them at the same time. Our national emergency notification system has become CNN Headline News. A sad state of affairs, especially eleven years after 9/11—a day in infamy in this country only equaled by Pearl Harbor.

SAD, SAD, SAD . . .

So, as the old cliché goes, “Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it . . . ”

MUST WE REPEAT OUR MISTAKES?

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"A well regulated breakfast, being necessary to the healthy start of the day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed."

Agreed, . . .

The eye-opener for me was in the recent past where I has operated at a joint water rescue scene locally where the collective multi-jurisdictional responders (local, state, tribal, federal) each utilized a myriad of UHF / VHF conventional format, an LTR format, some SMARTNET proprietary 800Mhz format and even some encrypted P-25 UHF radio systems.

Ironically, the commonly recognized radio equipment for this episode was Marine VHF, but not everyone participating that day was using that format.

We (globally) still have room for (interoperability) improvements yet. Drills, exercises, and practice scenarios are valuable for discovering these types of impediments. Grant funding has helped to address these shortfalls and also to help fund equipment purchases, but even that does not overcome internal policies regarding access to certain protected radio systems.

Patching is neat concept, but not always field expedient. Often it requires the assistance of a dedicated dispatch supervisor to make the necessary equipment connections from their offices. Then of course there are radio system coverage limitations (public safety tower sites) to consider.

Lets not forget civilian (and military) aircraft operating on various freqs occupying the further disparate AM band.

Too often I see local responders relying heavily upon their cellular handsets to communicate for official needs. Consider the harsh reality of cellular infrastructure collapse or overloading during a significant seismic event.

What else have I failed to mention here ?

On the SAR side of things, I think this where groups like mine (www.mwave.org) shine; we pretty much act as meeting point where everyone can talk and I wish more areas would designate such as group. I understand bickering like NYPD/FDNY did during 911 with command and comms, but that can be solved if there is a other middleman like us that can help out; it helps de-stress the situation for sure.

_________________
Mt Wave SAR member
Support Search & Rescue: Get Lost!
http://www.mwave.org