Fergie's Tech Blog

U.S. Lacks Unified Emergency Radio System

This is NOT a test....

An AP newswire article by Matthew Fordahl and Bruce Meyerson, via MSNBC, reports that:

After surviving Hurricane Katrina's initial blow, the radio communications system for the New Orleans police and fire departments dissolved as its radio towers lost their backup power generators in the ensuing flood.

Some of the equipment could have been brought back up quickly, except that technicians were blocked from entering the submerged city for three days by state troopers who were themselves struggling with an overwhelmed radio system from a different manufacturer.

"I didn't get a chance to plead my case," said Jan Edwards, service manager for the New Orleans radio system's maker, Tyco International Ltd. subsidiary M/A-Com Inc.

While Edwards and his team were detained on its outskirts, emergency workers inside the city were mostly limited to a handful of CB-like "mutual aid" radio channels, which were quickly overwhelmed.

Four years after the 2001 terror attacks exposed the need for more robust, interconnected communications during such calamities, with nearly a billion dollars appropriated by Congress for the task last year, the United States still lacks uniform systems that can keep all emergency responders in touch.

"We're no better off than we were then," Louisiana state Sen. Robert Barham said last week.

posted by Fergie @ 9/13/2005 04:12:00 PM