WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is reaching out to public-safety officials in Texas to make sure they know that 911 calls should be rerouted if a public-safety answering point is damaged by Hurricane Rita, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters Thursday morning.
Martin was summoned to Capitol Hill to tell the Senate Commerce Committee about the commission’s efforts and reactions to Hurricane Katrina.
One of the key lessons that Martin said the FCC learned was that the Gulf area PSAPs did not know where to transfer traffic when several 911 call centers went down. “They didn’t have a protocol in place as to where the traffic should go, so the calls were just dropped,” Martin told lawmakers.
Most of what Martin said Thursday was a repeat of what was said at last week’s FCC meeting held in Atlanta. At the Atlanta meeting, Martin said he is proposing creating a new Homeland Security and Public Safety Bureau. Additionally, he said the commission is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide mobile phones and 300 free minutes to anyone eligible for FEMA assistance.
While Martin was appearing at the Senate Commerce Committee, the Senate Homeland Security Committee was expected to consider legislation to provide $400 million in grants to states and localities to improve first-responder communications. This amount gradually will increase over five years.
“One of the many lessons we can take from the Hurricane Katrina disaster is that many communities throughout the nation still do not have the communications infrastructure in place for first responders to communicate with one another during an emergency,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security committee. “Our legislation builds on work that we have done in the past on this matter. It will help ensure that our first responders have effective interoperable communications systems, which are critical during any emergency.”
