The Imperfect Storm

Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mary Rose Roberts

National agencies work hard to improve operational response during hurricane season

For instance, in the May drill the P25 radios in the helicopters seemed to be working, but the team wasn't receiving communications from the ground. When they landed, Schulze approached a firefighter who was unfamiliar with the system. He found the radio wasn't set to the correct channel.

“The challenges can be, if you don't use the interoperability [function] very often, how does that first responder and the helicopter crew responding to the incident scene set their radio to the appropriate channel?” he said. “It takes practice.”

It's a great system, Schulze added. However, it'll take two or three years to have enough radios in circulation, since each radio carries a $65,000 price tag, and the installations are federally funded, he said.

Part of hurricane response is organizing volunteers who can provide human services on the ground. The American Red Cross uses wireless technology to mobilize nationwide volunteers and tests systems bimonthly to ensure their functionality.

Each Red Cross office has the capability to mobilize volunteers for national jobs — a national human resource system in a sense. Depending on the magnitude of the disaster, the organization must contact from 15 to 600 people simultaneously to let them know that their volunteer services are needed. It must happen fast, because the nonprofit organization assures local agencies that a team will be sent to the incident within four hours of receiving a call.

In the past, volunteers at an operations center used a telephone list to verbally contact other volunteers. This takes time and pulls bodies away from more pressing response assignments, such as setting up shelters and provisions prior to a hurricane making landfall.

Aniko Bahr, readiness manager for the Broward County, FL chapter of the American Red Cross, said the organization required an automated alert system to free up volunteers' time. Last year, it beta-tested AtHoc's wireless emergency-alert system as part of a pilot program to test its capabilities in natural disasters; the Red Cross must be able to organize enough volunteers to set up more than four evacuation centers within the disaster zone if a hurricane hits. AtHoc donated the emergency-alert technology at no cost to the Red Cross, Bahr said. Now, it is a permanent addition to the organization's IT infrastructure.