Subject: [NEXTEL-1] The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued "Appendix P", a report on emergency communications at the World Trade Center tower attacks.

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 09:16:09 -0400

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued
"Appendix P",  a report on emergency communications at the World Trade
Center tower attacks.

P–1

INTRODUCTION

On September 11, 2001, radio and telephone communications played a
significant role in the operations of emergency responders at the World
Trade Center (WTC). Radio and telephone communications were a primary
means of communicating information to emergency responders concerning
the incident. These forms of communication were also used by emergency
responders to communicate with people trapped in the WTC buildings and
people attempting to evacuate from the buildings. They were used to
communicate between members of the same emergency responder departments
for planning and operations at the incident, and they were used to
communicate between different departments or responding organizations at
the incident.
Each of the governmental departments that had emergency responders at
the WTC—New York City Fire Department (FDNY), New York City Police
Department (NYPD), and the Port Authority Police Department
(PAPD)—depended on their ability to communicate to accomplish their
mission and to obtain information related to operations safety at the
incident. Personnel from each of the departments used radios, cellular
phones, and wired or landline telephones for communications during the
incident. In addition, the emergency responders relied on the most basic
form of communication, direct face-to-face communications.

As a normal practice during a typical emergency response many radio and
telephone communications are recorded by the respective departments that
respond to an incident. These recordings are normally made by the
departments to provide an accurate record of operations during an
incident. These records are often used by departments during review of
incident operations. They are also used for investigative purposes and
are sometimes used as evidence in legal cases. During the attack on the
WTC many of the emergency responder communications were recorded and
preserved. This study is based on these recordings. In addition,
information gathered by personnel from the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) during first-person interviews with more
than 100 emergency responders has contributed to the report.

P.2 REPORT OBJECTIVES

The objective of this study is to develop a better understanding of the
role that emergency communications played during the attack on the WTC,
and to quantify information related to communications effectiveness.
Although there have been numerous reports of radio equipment failures
during the emergency response at the WTC, the only radio system examined
in this study is that of the FDNY WTC site high-rise repeater that was
installed by the Port Authority. This report does not address issues
related to the technical capabilities of any other radio equipment. The
analysis of handie-talkies and other radio equipment is in progress and
will be addressed in a following report.

Appendix P

Many factors are associated with the ability of emergency communications
to be successful. The following objectives were set in this report:

• To document radio and telephone communications operations
• To document radio communications readability or understandability
• To quantifying radio communications traffic volume
• To understand the impact of traffic volume on communications
readability and the transfer of information
• To identify communications associated with dispatch and arrival of
responders
• To identify communications related to evacuation and emergency
response operations
• To identity communications related to building conditions at the WTC
and the impact of this information on the emergency response WTC 2.

Full Report:
http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixp.pdf