Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Communications Breakdown-

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 04:56:40 -0400

Breakdown

Emergency communications flawed for years
By JASON LAUGHLIN and JASON NARK
Courier-Post Staff

John West, Camden County's deputy fire marshal and a Mount Ephraim firefighter,
came home deeply troubled many nights, his widow, Angela, remembers.

He believed firefighters' lives were being jeopardized, she said. She listened to
him vent about unheeded complaints to the Camden County Communications Center in
Lindenwold, hub of the radio network that handles 9-1-1 calls and provides a
crucial lifeline to police, firefighters and EMTs on the street.

The system was flawed, possibly dangerously so, he told her.
"The more he barked, the less they wanted to listen," Angela West said.

A four-week investigation by the Courier-Post, including interviews with 16 fire
and police officials as well as a review of more than 150 pages of county
documents, discovered a slew of problems with the communications system.
Among the findings:

The county lacks frequencies. The amount of radio traffic criss-crossing the
county frequencies is, at times, more than the system can safely sustain.

Some public safety agencies within Camden County are unable to talk to each other
by radio.

County documents show the county was well aware of a number of the problems facing
the communications center as early as six years ago. Though several reports
document communications problems, little was done to solve them, documents show.
The communications system provides service to all county fire departments,
ambulance squads and all but six of the county's municipal police departments, as
well as the county prosecutor's office and the fire marshal's office, among
others. The system used for fire and EMS communications is nearly 27 years old.
The police communications system was installed in 1989.

The system has elicited criticism from police and fire officials countywide.

In a case of tragic irony, West and two other firefighters, James Sylvester and
Thomas Stewart III, as well as three young sisters died at a July 4, 2002, fire
scene where communications problems developed, according to a Department of Labor
report released in May.

Questions about the number of frequencies available to the county were raised as
early as 1997 in the case of police communications, according to a performance
assessment report released that year.
Camden County's Department of Public Safety has memos and reports that refer to
committees formed in 1999 to deal with growing communications problems.

And a 2001 document generated by the Department of Public Safety states: "These
systems are not meeting the requirements of public safety communications in the
county today."

The lack of frequencies is at the heart of the communications woes, experts said.
Radio traffic in Camden County exceeds the capabilities of the frequencies
available, reports state.

A single frequency can handle only one message at a time. Messages sent along a
frequency during busy times become like cars trying to cross a one-lane bridge
during rush hour: Only one can cross at a time while others must wait.
Because of this, firefighters in Gloucester City didn't arrive at the scene of a
January house fire only three blocks from the firehouse until a full four minutes
after a 9-1-1 call was received.

The reason for the delay? A nonfatal car accident in Winslow happened at the same
time.
The accident was received by central communications first and, therefore, help was
dispatched first, Gloucester City Fire Chief William Glassman said. By the time
Gloucester City firefighters arrived at the fire in their town, the house was too
badly burned to salvage.

This is just one problem that can stem from the lack of frequencies, authorities
said. Others include delays in communications, interference and problems with
interoperability - the ability of one department or agency to communicate with
another.
The county system is not always a problem. Most of those interviewed said the
system is an immense improvement from days when towns dispatched for themselves.
And usually, fire and police officials said, the county system provides the
service needed.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time it's not a problem, but the one percent, we can't
deal with that one percent," said Chief Joe Riggs, of Haddonfield's Haddon Company
One. Police agree problems exist.

"That's their lifeline," said Collingswood Police Chief Thomas Garrity. "It's more
valuable than our weapons. The potential is there for a disaster." County
communications technicians have dealt with some of the interference fire
departments faced. The Department of Public Safety also commissioned a consulting
report currently under way to identify problems and decide on solutions.

Police and fire officials say the improvements made over the years merely propped
up the system without addressing the root cause of the problems. And, critics say,
county personnel turned a blind eye to companies that could have solved problems
in favor of remaining with their current supplier of equipment, Motorola.

"They refuse to look at any technologies that are not vendor-specific," said
Oaklyn Police Chief Chris Ferrari, also president of the Camden County Police
Chiefs' Association.

But Camden County communications officials argue change is harder to bring about
than most local authorities realize.
"The perception is that things can be done faster than they can," said Chief of
Communications Charles Lezenby. "It's frustrating for both sides because of the
inavailability of the frequencies and the speed at which things can get done."

Phase One of the current $460,000 consulting report is finished, but the
three-phase project isn't likely to be done until late 2004, Lezenby said. His
office asked Macro Consultants to include a study of short-term solutions to be
finished more quickly.
Though reports and officials cite numerous problems with the county system, most
concerns stem from the lack of frequencies. Currently, the county allocates its 31
frequencies geographically and assigns them to specific purposes. Only one
frequency is delegated to dispatch fire vehicles throughout the county. For other
purposes, such as fire scene communications, there is one frequency for all towns
north of Interstate 295 and a frequency for departments south of the highway,
county authorities said.
"The times I've experienced that the most is during storms, like during heavy
rainstorms," Haddonfield's Riggs said. "You have a lot of companies on the air at
the same time."

The latest consulting report states Camden County's frequencies regularly operate
above generally accepted levels of use most of the time. During busy times, the
report states, strain on the system can "lead to safety risks in the field."
A firefighter trying to talk to other firefighters on the scene could have to wait
in line the same way as a 9-1-1 dispatch. The consequences of a firefighter
waiting for an open frequency could be dire, authorities said. Camden city, while
part of the county communications network, refuses to use county frequencies as
its primary communications channel while at fire scenes, fearing that a
firefighter could become trapped and unable to alert colleagues, said Chief Joseph
Marini. His department switches to an independent "tactical" frequency while
fighting blazes, he said.

"For fire ground operations, it's not an effective system at all," Marini said of
the county network.
Cherry Hill's firefighters also use an independent tactical frequency. Other fire
departments occasionally switch to independent municipal frequencies when at
serious fires to avoid radio traffic jams, said Collingswood Fire Chief Mike Hall.

Departments using these frequencies send regular updates to the county
communications center when on a tactical frequency, but most of their
communications can't be heard by county personnel and are not recorded.

And in an area where fire departments regularly respond to fires in other towns,
using tactical frequencies can leave firefighters from one department unable to
speak with firefighters from another community.

That's what happened in the early morning hours of July 4, 2002, when firefighters
from Camden, Gloucester City, Mount Ephraim and several other departments found
themselves working side-by-side to battle a fire consuming a duplex on North
Broadway in Gloucester City, according to a Department of Labor report. That
report, the result of an investigation into the deaths of West, Sylvester and
Stewart when the duplex collapsed, reported Gloucester City firefighters were out
of touch with the Camden Fire Department at times.

Much of the communication between the departments that night was handled by a
Camden chief standing next to Gloucester City Fire Chief Glassman and relaying
messages by mouth, Marini and Glassman said.

Though communications issues arose at the Independence Day fire, no one has said
the deaths of the three firefighters were caused by a communications breakdown.
Camden firefighters reported weakness in the building, but the message came just
moments before its collapse, Marini said. It was too late to make a difference, he
said.

Though Camden County Communications Center officials declined to speak directly
about interoperability issues and the Independence Day fire, they did say there
are some choices made by fire departments they have no control over.
"We have very little authority to correct some things that need to be corrected,"
Lezenby said. "The county doesn't have jurisdiction over the mayor and council."

Some fire officials believe independent frequencies can be just as risky as the
possibility of interruption at a crucial moment, said Frank DeLucca III,
Lindenwold's fire chief.

"The county needs to be monitoring the call of a firefighter in distress and could
hear it where a person on the scene will not," he said.

The issue of interoperability, the ability of one agency to speak with another, is
even worse when firefighters want to talk to police officers. Firefighter
communications are handled on the 100 megahertz bandwidth. Police communications
use 500 MHz. The two services' radios are incapable of receiving each other's
signals.

A Gloucester City firefighter standing within a few feet of a Gloucester City
policeman would be unable to talk with that officer via radio. A dispatcher in
Lindenwold would have to act as a middleman.

Because of the lack of frequencies, the county also has few options when one of
their frequencies is threatened by interference, authorities said.

The county communications center last year addressed interference on one fire
frequency regularly received from Philadelphia public safety transmissions. The
city across the Delaware used the same frequency as fire departments north of
I-295. The city frequencies broadcast from a tower on the Walt Whitman Bridge
drowned out local signals, Glassman said. The county switched departments using
the affected frequency to a different channel, county authorities said. The
affected frequency was abandoned, leaving firefighters again with just two
frequencies.

Though not nearly so bad, interference still pops up, firefighters said.

"You'll hear them bleed over," said DeLucca. "You might not be able to key your
microphone up because of that bleedover."
DeLucca has heard other counties, asphalt companies, utility companies and
landscaping companies while trying to use his radio. Generally it isn't a problem,
he said.

County documents dating to 1997 show Camden County officials were aware of issues
with their frequencies. These documents record developing concerns in three major
categories:

Not enough frequencies available for communications.

Problems with interference.

Problems with interoperability.

Managers at the communications center assert they do the best they can, but many
of these problems are beyond their ability to solve. Any solution would involve
lots of money, a Federal Communications Commission-refereed wrestling match for
limited radio frequencies with television networks or cellular phone companies,
and negotiations with local authorities who, at times, can't agree on what should
be done, Lezenby said.

The FCC could not provide comment before this story ran.
And the county's options remain limited, Lezenby said. "VHF frequencies (those
used by fire and EMS) are probably more valuable than gold bullion," he said.
"They're hard to get." Part of the county's problem, critics say, stems from an
excessive reliance on Motorola, which has provided equipment to the county
communications center since its inception about 30 years ago. Motorola is a
reputable company, experts said, but does not provide some kinds of equipment that
could solve problems more quickly, they said.

"They need to explore their options and see what's out there," said Haddon
Township Police Chief Joseph Gallagher Jr., also chairman of the county's Radio
Advisory Board.

Options include technologies that allow users to essentially send more than one
signal at a time along the same frequency, and narrowband technology, which
subdivides channels into smaller frequencies. By buying equipment attuned to the
more narrow frequencies, what is now one channel can be turned into several.

The county would be open to looking at vendors other than Motorola at this point,
said the communication center's Technical Services Manager Richard Connor. When
the county last bought equipment, Motorola was the best in the business, he said.
And in past years other vendors made systems that were proprietary, or not
compatible with equipment from other companies, he said. Now, many of these
obstacles don't exist.

"Today, the clear leader in the industry is not as distinct as it was then,"
Connor said.
The county's choice to work with Macro, a Burlington, Mass., company, on the
latest consulting report is evidence of its openness to other vendors, Lezenby
said.

"One of the reasons we had selected Macro is because, in their past performance,
they are not vendor selective," he said. "They work with them all."

Critics of the county's system also say county officials lacked foresight when
they gave up five 800 MHz frequencies in 1988 in exchange for 15 of the 500 MHz
frequencies now used for police communications.

Five 800 frequencies weren't enough to handle the county's workload, and didn't
have the range the 500s provided, said Connor.
"We were not able to get additional 800 frequencies," he said. "It would not have
been enough unless we were able to obtain 10 or 15 more." But critics say other
technologies would have made those frequencies viable. Giving them away was a
mistake, said Gallagher.

"I think the standard in the industry, you hold onto them until the FCC makes you
give them back," he said.
Some police chiefs believe technical experts at the center have not given county
freeholders enough information about other options, said Gallagher and Ferrari,
Oaklyn's chief.

The county communications center's management has agreed the communications system
has to be rebuilt ground up, probably with new frequencies. Area police, fire and
EMS officials have been asked for input in the latest report, and county officials
believe they will be ready to rebuild the system when the report is finished.

In the meantime, firefighters may again use the frequency abandoned because of the
interference from Philadelphia, Lezenby said. Philadelphia stopped using that
channel about a month ago.

According to Camden County Director of Public Safety Herb Steelman, Gov. James E.
McGreevey chose Camden County as the one jurisdiction in the state that could
apply for the approximately $142.5 million the federal Office of Homeland Security
has set aside for communications issues.

Steelman said he was unsure how much of the funding the county would request. Even
with these steps, change could take time. Burlington County spent five years and
$30 million revamping their communications center, officials there said. It will
be online this fall, they said.

Despite the emphasis placed on the current report, local officials aren't
convinced the county is now on the right track. This is not the first consulting
report commissioned with the intent to solve communications woes, they said.
"We keep getting, `The survey says, the survey says, the survey says,' " Glassman
said. "My problem is, what are we doing to fix it?"

For Angela West, finger pointing and blame are not at issue, she said. She, too,
wants to see results.
West is raising two daughters and a son alone. She made sure her children didn't
put their lives on hold with the death of their father, she said.

She doesn't insist they attend memorial services for their father. But she does
want them to know their father's passion, the security of the men and women who
risk their lives to keep others safe, wasn't forgotten with his passing.
"I want it so I can say to my kids, `When this happened to your dad, they
listened,' " she said.

 http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/july/m070103a.htm

 John West. West, two other firemen and three sisters died in Gloucester City on
July 4, 2002.

Video from the fatal July 4th fire -

http://www.southjerseynews.com/issues/july/m070103a.htm#

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From: sparkie_rf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 09:33:17 -0000

> came home deeply troubled many nights, his widow, Angela, 

Why haven't they just switched to Nextel???

Nextel could borrow an idea from Apple, the "switchers" campaign. 

They could feature police, fire, EMT, and FEMA, etc. It would 
include a deep bass voice over with "This is homeland security on 
Nextel" with a smiling fireman and fresh cat rescued from a tree, 
and then they show dead bodies, saying this is what happens when you 
use the competition.

Its this the real message anyway?

Yeah, priceless.

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