NIUSR: What We Do

Thanks again to Tom Rowles for all his work in putting together these videos.

Who Is NIUSR - Video

Thanks to Tom Rowles for putting this together for NIUSR

Standards lacking for preparedness ratings

Reader's Digest is coming out (July, 06) with their list of urban areas and rating how prepared they are for a crisis. RD focused on three main categories: emergency readiness, crisis communications and medical response.

Among the security measures reviewed were:

• ratio of first responders (police, fire and medical) to residents;
• proximity of federal search-and-rescue teams;
• clear instructions on city websites regarding evacuation plans including residents with special needs;
• communication capabilities between first responders;
• the existence of 24-hour emergency alert systems;
• number of hospital beds per residents.

How is Reader's Digest qualified to measure the preparedness of our urban areas?

The answer is simple. They aren't, but no one else was doing it, so they took it upon themselves.

This reveals three opportunities for NIUSR:

1. Support RD for their initiative and recognition of the issues, and use this as an opportunity to critically review their work, offer our expertise, endorse the study (if appropriate) and potentially join them in this effort (they may want us to lead, as experts).
2. RD is about to give this issue a spotlight and I think NIUSR should take advantage of that to talk about our "imperatives" and our progress, to date.
3. Standards! What are they? Where are they? RD suggests that they don't exist, so they did their best to come up with some. This is a gap that NIUSR needs to fill, until someone with more authority, expertise or resources wants to fill it.

I would like to hear from you and especially, your thoughts on what the standards should be.

Feds go for the guns

The AP & Washington Times articles have spurred much discussion this morning among NIUSR members.

Here are the articles:

AP - US Military Could End Up Leading the Fight Against Mother Nature
Washington Times - Bush Seeks To Federalize Emergencies

Lets hear from you, using the [comments] link below.

King For A Day

I thought we'd mix things up a bit today and try something a little different to spark the brain cells and get folks thinking.

Situation One: You been contacted by President Bush and advised that you are the new Director of FEMA and that the Cabinet Level post has been re-established. Your job is now to prepare for Hurricane Rita while simultaneously revamping the organization and leading the Agency in responding to the Katrina aftermath.

Challenge: Name the first 5 things you would accomplish and how you would go about accomplishing them.

Situation Two: You been contacted by President Bush and advised that you are the new Director of FEMA and that the Cabinet Level post is not going to be re-established. Your job is now to prepare for Hurricane Rita while simultaneously revamping the organization and leading the Agency in responding to the Katrina aftermath.

Challenge: Name the first 5 things you would accomplish and how you would go about accomplishing them.

Obviously, we each have those ideas that we believe could re-baseline or further enhance the organization, but putting those ideas into actionable items isn't the same thing. One of the exercises here is to get everyone to look beyond the surface issues, explore the root cause(s) and effect(s), and then determine possible methods of overcoming the obstacles. Of course, we at NIUSR say identify the opportunity for improvement, understand the opportunity and why it needs improving (because we all know that if something isn't broke, then don't fix it), and then articulate how to implement the improvement. Who knows, maybe someone inside the beltway will read the responses to this post and take some valuable nuggets away.

Bryan

Communications Interoperability

I will begin by citing the closing statement of Senator John McCain during his "FLOOR SPEECH ON INTEROPERABLE COMMUNICATIONS FOR PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICIALS" on 13 September, 2005 to wit:

“I will conclude by sharing 9/11 Commission Chairman Kean’s comments as stated on CNN’s Late Edition this past Sunday, “[w]hat’s frustrating is it’s the same thing over again. I mean, how many people have to lose their lives? It’s lack of communication, our first responders not being able to talk to each other.... Basically it’s many of the things that, frankly, if some of our recommendations had been passed by the United States Congress … could have been avoided. But on the ground, the people that get there first can’t talk to each other because the radio communications don’t work. They haven’t got enough what’s called spectrum. So there is a bill in Congress to provide first responders spectrum. The bill has been sitting in Congress, nothing has been happening, and again, people on the ground -- police, fire, medical personnel – couldn’t talk to each other. That’s outrageous and it’s a scandal and I think it cost lives.” I couldn’t agree more.”

Now, even though the lack of sufficient spectrum coupled with the geographic spectrum management issues are clearly valid concerns, I’d like to point to a very different, yet equally contributing factor affecting interoperable public safety communications. I call it “the Vendor Syndrome”. As with any technology in our free enterprise, competition is spurred by a valid customer need, coupled with who can deliver the goods with requisite “bells & whistles” for a decent price. This tends to drive competition to the point where standards are implemented, but not necessarily in the same way or using the same schedule. This means that any manufacturer can claim “Standards Compliance” while remaining predominantly proprietary, thereby protecting and/or increasing their market share and unseating the competition.

Remember, open competition was the anticipated result of setting the P25 standard, with the interoperability requirement that P25-compliant equipment from any qualified manufacturer must work together seamlessly. In addition, the P25 suite of standards provides an open interface to the radio frequency (RF) subsystem to facilitate interlinking of different vendors' systems. Product options however, may sometimes dictate equipment be procured exclusively from a single manufacturer, thereby effectively limiting or eliminating interoperability. It is important to be aware of this if interoperability is important to your communications. Vendors today include Motorola, M/A-COM, EF Johnson, iCOM, Bendix King, RELM, KENWOOD, DATRON, Thales, and Vertex just to name a few.

It is important to note that P25 is not a "single standard", but really a "number of individual protocols" that can be mixed and matched. A "Project 25 compliant" system may really use only a few of the many standards. For instance, a P25 system may be conventional or trunked, use encryption or transmit in the clear, and carry voice, data, or both.

OK, I’ll end this entry, but would like to ensure that everyone understands that we must be willing to agree to disagree. Nobody has to agree with anything I’ve said, but don’t go flaming just because everyone is steadfastly standing by their solution as the greatest. I say, as long as a system meets its user requirements, then they may have a valid position from which to debate. However, wait until they bring some outside organizations into their jurisdiction and see if they can communicate with the visiting teams' portable/mobile radios. If they can’t, then there’s a problem.

Bryan

Legacy Missions

Terrorism is getting all the DHS-related press. Consequently, most people inside and outside government think that the legacy missions of agencies like FEMA and the Coast Guard have been supplanted by terrorist related responsibilities to a much greater degree than they actually have. While it's true that a lot of planning for terrorism has been added to what was already on our plates, the legacy missions of FEMA and the CG have changed very little with the move to DHS.

I may be wrong, but I believe that what was lost in FEMA more than anything was the leadership skills and subject matter expertise in key places. The legislation that moved FEMA didn't change its mission as far as I can remember. For that reason, I take Dr.Sylevs' advocacy for radical change with a grain of salt. I stand to be corrected. We would all like to see the federal government revolve around our mission areas, but it's too big and complex for that to happen.That's not to say that we shouldn't use teachable moments to call attention to our needs.

Dan Lemon

Let's Put Your Hand on the Plough

There is an old axiom in farming…

“If you put your hand on the plough you finish the row”

Well we have put our hand on this blog, but I’m not sure at our present pace that we will even get the row started.

Let’s give everyone on the NIUSR Executive Board access to be contributors and post directly to the blog, not just a few of us with the remainder of the group being shuffled to the back page in the comments section.

Let’s discuss issues in front of the world, at least those that are not confidential, so that we draw people’s attention. The intent of the blog is not to hear ourselves talk but to spread the word.