Chertoff promises interoperable communications in one year
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said that the nation’s 35 highest-risk cities must have systems enabling first responders to communicate in a disaster by the end of next year, Newsday reports. Every state must have such a system by the end of 2008, he added.
“The bottom line is we have to be able to communicate during a disaster,” Chertoff told more than 1,000 state and local Homeland security officials assembled at the Washington Hilton. “We’re going to get it done.”
The lack of interoperable communications among first responders, and the poor functioning of fire radios in the World Trade Towers, were contributing causes in the scores of firefighters’ deaths in the Sept. 11 attacks. Hampered communication also slowed rescue and recovery after Hurricane Katrina.
Chertoff announced those deadlines five weeks before the start of a new Congress controlled by Democrats, many of whom have expressed frustration about the slow pace of progress on first-responder communications and pledged tougher oversight of his department.
The secretary said public scorecards would be issued in the next few weeks to the highest-risk cities — including Boston, Houston and Chicago — to help them prioritize needed improvements. The focus, he said, would be regional because “threats are region-based.”
The baseline goal is for incident command managers to be able to communicate with one another within one hour.
Chertoff also pledged Tuesday that next year’s allocation of anti-terror grants would be more transparent. While continuing to allocate the lion’s share of money to high-risk areas, he said, decisions would be based more on “common sense” than on “bean counting.” This year’s grants, which included 40-percent funding cuts to New York City and Washington, D.C., were widely criticized.
Changes to the program, he said, will include an extended timeline that will enable municipalities to fine-tune their proposals after getting feedback.
For more on communications interoperability, see The Interoperability Challenge, from the October issue of GOVERNMENT SECURITY.