Firefighters’ inability to communicate with each other
adequately during the October wildfires in Southern California
outraged the public. But boosting interoperability, particularly up
the chain from local to state to federal units, all of which fought
the wildfires, is neither easy nor cheap.
Firefighters’ inability to communicate with each other adequately during the October wildfires in Southern California outraged the public. But boosting interoperability, particularly up the chain from local to state to federal units, all of which fought the wildfires, is neither easy nor cheap.
Nor is the improvement imminent, despite years of effort at every level of government, with the Federal Communications Commission at the top of a heap of problems.
Two related issues predominate, nationally and locally: increasing interference in public-safety communications from burgeoning cell-phone use, and lack of adequate channels for use by public-safety agencies and a shortage of standard radio equipment that can access those channels.
An agreement reportedly reached between the FCC and Nextel to greatly reduce such interference and free up frequencies may have unraveled last week.
And it does nothing to address a major concern of cities along the Mexican and Canadian borders, cities brought into a coalition by San Diego: amendments to bilateral treaties on shared frequencies necessary to reduce cross-border interference and facilitate expansion of local and regional systems.
Those issues aside, San Diego can tackle a problem all too apparent in last fall’s wildfires: busy signals that hamper crucial communication among firefighters, police and others, jeopardizing lives and property.
The number of public-safety users in such an emergency has already and unexpectedly outgrown the capacity of the region’s 5-year-old, $40 million, 800 MHz system.
The Regional Communications System, primary overseer of public-safety communications in San Diego and Imperial counties, offers this solution: a $23 million upgrade of the current system, preparatory to a $100 million transition to nationwide interoperability, which the federal government has essentially mandated, but not funded, by 2018.
It is an interim measure, improving emergency communications only among San Diego and Imperial County agencies, not with other county, state or federal agencies operating here during emergencies.
It would, however, keep the current system adequate through 2012 and buy time to pay its remaining $73 million debt. And its improvements give the region a leg up on the larger, future transition. It’s not a cheap solution.
But the human and economic cost of firestorms isn’t cheap. San Diego should not face the next firestorm with grossly inadequate communications.
– San Diego Union Tribune
