Dec. 06, 2005 - 16:12 MST

HEAR ME NOW ?

Bureaucratic red tape and apparent indifference to the needs of the population seem to be hampering Homeland Security it appears. An articel by Ann Imse of the Rocky Mountain News in today's issue has something to say on that subject. In full:

RADIO WOES STILL PLAGUE HOMELAND SECURITY

"Colorado, like the nation as a whole, still falls short on a number of homeland security goals, officials say."

"On Monday, the 9/11 Commission gave five F's and 12 D's in grading the nation's response to its 41 key recommendations for preventing and responding to another terrorist attack."

"One major problem is the continuing inability of first responders from different jurisdictions to talk to each other over radios."

"It is scandalous that police and firefighters in large cities still cannot communicate reliably in a major crisis," said 9/11 comission Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton in releasing Monday's report."

"In Denver, Mayor John Hickenlooper was unhappy to see in a recent disaster drill that this problem has still not been solved here.

"The problem stems from decisions some 15 years ago to buy police radios that are incompatible across models and frequencies."

"It's as if Cingular and Verizon cell phones could not communicate with each other."

"After the Columbine High School killings in 1999, when hundreds of responders had trouble communicating with agencies with different kinds of radios, Colorado began investing more than $130 million in a new state radio system."

"The system, though still incomplete, is now used by every state agency and dozens of other emergency agencies, including the Jefferson and Arapahoe sheriffs.

But Denver, Aurora, Lakewood and others have huge investments in radio systems that can speak to each other, BUT NOT TO THE STATE SYSTEM."

"Denver recently purchased state-of-the-art computer equipment that can translate any incompatible radio calls."

But the recent disaster drill showed that installing the translation device is just the first step."

"The individual radios of thousands of first responders in the metro area must undergo minor re-programming and responders must be trained."

"Hickenlooper insisted after the drill that this would become a higher priority."

"The 9/11 commission also condemned a federal failure to conduct risk assessments of the nation's critical infrastructure and to fund security improvements."

"In Colorado, little has been done on this front, by either the state or the metro area."

"Only a dozen or so site-specific security projects have been funded in Colorado, largely in El Paso County."

"There's so much to do, that you can't do everything at once," said Tracy Howard, Denver's acting emergency response manager."

"Howard added that radios and other equipment for first responders have been a higher priority."

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Columbine fiasco was in 1999, and it seems as if the state, county and metro types of honchos "just didn't get it," and let things lollygag along. Assuming I suppose that no earthquakes or other disasters would ever happen again that would require adequate and rapid communication between different arms of law and emergency response "first responders."

Each entity seems to have reserved the right to buy whatever equipment it wishes to, regardless of imcompatibility with other jurisdiction's equipment.

Seems that all the different telephone companies managed to keep a united communication system going, even after the governmental split-up of the Bell System.

I don't advocate the federal government stepping and making the rules over who buys what, and whether it will be compatible with other systems. Seems to me that states, counties and metro areas should have, after Columbine, got together and agreed to make systems compatible with each other NATION WIDE, it also seems to me that communication equipment manufacturers have guilt enough to go around -- seems to me that they could have avoided this situation long, long ago and set standards for emergency communication equipment to make their systems compatible with others.

Of course that is too simple and easy, isn't it ? And this is just a portion of homeland security problems, more to follow.

The vision of a sherrif's deputy, holding a tin can with a string on the bottom, in a disaster - - shouting, "Can you HEAR ME NOW ? . . . . . . . . . .

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