Like a tsunami

In New York City — hit particularly hard by the storm — public-safety communications remained operable the entire time, according to Charles Dowd, a deputy chief for the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and a member of the FirstNet board.

"Both the police and fire systems stayed up 100% of the time," Dowd said. "We lost a couple of receiver sites temporarily, but those were receiver sites mixed with another receiver site, so there was no de-gradation in the system. We did not lose a single frequency on the police or fire side the entire time.

"That's a real testament to the efforts of our guys in our radio shop. They did a tremendous job."

Another factor was that the public-safety communications system benefited from backup power provided by batteries and generators in areas where the commercial power grid went down, Dowd said. Although getting fuel was a well-chronicled issue for consumers, public safety was able to secure the fuel it needed to keep backup generators running, he said.

"Most of our stuff is above grade," Dowd said. "Most of our stuff resides in buildings, and we tend to do the installs. Obviously, the antennas are high up, but also most of the other equipment was high up. [The few] sites that went down didn't go down because of power, because they had sufficient battery backup that we could replenish. The only issue was backhaul connectivity.

"Our radio system worked great. Obviously, the commercial networks didn't fare quite as well."

RELATED: NYPD's Dowd: Sandy 'came in like a tsunami'

Although there was plenty of warning that Sandy would hit the East Coast, the impact of the storm was still startling, Dowd said.

"This thing came in almost exactly like a tsunami," he said.

Indeed, on the day that Sandy hit, there were more than 100,000 calls to the 911 switch, compared with the 28,000-30,000 emergency calls that the system normally receives on a daily basis, Dowd said. The calls were answered by an extremely dedicated staff, many of whom reported to work despite significant family and transportation issues, he said.
"Some of them had to walk to local precincts and be driven in, because the transportation system stopped running at a certain point. But these folks came in," Dowd said. "Many of them stayed over 24 hours, and some of them worked 16-hour tours. They were sitting over there in the 911 center, eating military MREs — ready-to-serve meals. It was quite an effort on their part to get the job done."