Katrina Panel Poised to Report to FCC

The report will say communication recovery efforts worked rather well at the federal level, such as at the National Coordinating Center for Telecom (NCC). The flaws arose in federal and industry interaction with state and local officials, panel Chmn. Nancy Victory said. “We're not aware that there were real, established, or strong methods for this coordination. At least nothing seemed to come up before this panel,” Victory said. But state and local officials were out of the loop when it came to coordinating communication systems with the federal govt., National Guard and other military units, she said: “This is a loop that needs to be closed.”

The panel distilled its investigation of Katrina’s impact on communications infrastructure industry by industry, Victory said at the group’s final public meeting Fri. But the panel lacks data precise enough to detail the storm’s impact on networks geographically, she said.

Failures in first responder communication were a problem of operability rather than an issue of interoperability, the report will say. The panel will tell the Commission that there should be stockpiles of communications gear in place for emergencies, that there were no redundant systems in place and that when emergency management offices had to relocate they didn’t even have plans for call forwarding.

The panel will report that communications assets sent in by the federal govt. weren’t deployed because state and local officials didn’t know of them. Offers to donate gear by the private sector went untapped because there was no official place to put contributed equipment. WiFi, WiMAX, satellite and certain paging means that could have been used weren’t, and back-up equipment, while available, went unused because people hadn’t been trained to use it, the report will say.

At the federal level, recovery communication between National Coordinating Center for Telecom (NCC) members seemed effective. However, the report will note that the NCC doesn’t include everybody in the communications industry. The panel will call for better, easier emergency contact information for federal agencies, including the FCC, and warn that “there were too many federal agencies involved,” Victory said.

Panel Considers Carrier Access to Disaster Areas

The Katrina panel will sign off on National Security Telecom Advisory Committee (NSTAC) recommendations released this week aimed at getting telecom carrier and other industry workers official access to disaster areas (CD May 11 p7). To distinguish them from firefighters, police and EMS and other “true first responders,” workers will be dubbed “emergency responders-private sector.” NSTAC said it will promote procedures worked out between BellSouth and Ga. to credential industry crews, providing them with hangtags and letters of reference prior to an emergency. But, in a change from NSTAC’s plan, the panel urged expanding this definition to include cable and broadcasting repair crews -- which is not in the NSTAC recommendations.

The panel plans to urge that these workers be required to undergo National Incident Management System training. “We know that for people to go into an area where they could be facing a crisis situation a certain level of training is required,” said Steve Davis, senior vp-engineering at Clear Channel Radio, chmn. of a task force examining recovery coordination and procedures.

The panel will recommend regional bodies line up staging areas, or “coordination areas,” for communications workers to use in disasters. These areas will guarantee “that everybody is not getting in everybody else’s way,” Davis said. But several panel members disagreed on the practicality of asking hundreds of repair crews to gather in one place. “This would be a large group of people,” Victory conceded: “Perhaps it would overwhelm the existing facility.” A central repository for reporting power outages also is needed, the panel said.

The panel is expected to urge a federal website be set up for activation in disasters to provide emergency management contacts and staging area information. The FCC would have a role to be determined in deciding the site’s content. The panel will recommend that the FCC move quickly to launch its Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau.

The panel’s emergency communications working group wants special status for EMS worker communications. Topics still being discussed include weaving the military into civilian interoperable communications and the need for grants for PSAPs to complete 911 capabilities. The report includes a section on PSAP routing because Hurricane Katrina disabled both primary and secondary PSAPs, Victory said.

Heavily discussed Fri. were the emergency alert system (EAS) and the media. “It seems as if the 24/7 news cycle has overtaken EAS,” said Thomas Fitzpatrick of Giuliani Partners. What’s more, people watching TV news “knew more about what was going on in New Orleans than the public safety officials,” he said: “Information was hiding in plain sight. All this reporting is going out to a huge venue, but it’s going right over the heads of the people on the ground. We need to get those feeds back to local officials, whose infrastructure has probably been wiped out.”

Reporting on the Media Security & Reliability Council’s work, Fitzpatrick urged broadcasters and local officials to get acquainted outside of deadlines so all know how the news business works. “You have a tremendous tool and you also have the knowledge of how your tools can influence public action. There needs to be a connection between local officials and that capability,” he said.

The panel will say EAS was underused. It did see use by the National Weather System, “but it never appeared to be activated at the local level to provide localized evacuation information,” Victory said. Entercom Vp-Engineering Martin Hadfield said local officials hesitated to activate EAS even if they had the gear. The panel will urge the FCC to educate state and local personnel about EAS so they aren’t reluctant to use it, Victory said.

The report will note that satellite and certain paging technologies proved especially resilient amid hurricanes and floods because their infrastructure isn’t terrestrial, Victory said. The panel will urge use of non-traditional technologies like WiMAX or satellite to restore communication and bridge networks. The group will recommend the FCC educate people in and out of the telecom industry on alternate technologies, she said. Marion Scott, head of the infrastructure resiliency working group and CenturyTel vp- operations, said her team came across technologies they hadn’t known of: “I've been in the communications industry for 25 years and I saw some things I've never seen before.”

- Adrianne Kroepsch, Howard Buskirk