WASHINGTON-The solution to the thorny problem of first responders not being able to communicate with each other may come from the local level rather than the federal government, a federal public-safety communications official told a House panel last week.
“Sometimes in the federal government we believe we need to push solutions down when what we really need to do is pull up solutions from the local levels,” said David Boyd, director of the office of interoperability & compatibility in the directorate of preparedness in the Department of Homeland Security.
Boyd’s appearance before the House emergency-preparedness subcommittee came after a report was released by the First Response Coalition criticizing the lack of interoperable communications in eight hurricane-prone states.
The FRC found that each state had a different level of interoperability or in some cases no interoperability.
- South Carolina and Florida have statewide systems that are open to local agencies but funding is a persistent problem for many localities to join the systems.
- Mississippi has 40 different radio systems in use. The Mississippi Wireless Communications Commission has been meeting since June 2005, but has yet to implement a solution.
- Alabama distributes preprogrammed radios at the site of an emergency.
- Georgia is in the beginning stages of deploying an $8 million Voice over Internet Protocol interoperability system.
- North Carolina’s interoperability system is not slated to be completed until 2010.
“With forecasters predicting an active and dangerous 2006 hurricane season, improving first-responder communications before the next catastrophic storm arrives is imperative,” said FRC.
Another problem is a lack of knowledge of how these systems are being funded. One of the reasons for the lack of clarity is that state first-responder block grants are not transparent.
“The federal government, and states and localities must do a better job of tracking the disbursement and allocation of grant monies,” said FRC.
