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National Emergency Communications Planning

Challenges, Progress & Future

What is the role of communications during catastrophic situations?

Presented by: Michael AlagnaDirector Homeland Security Strategic Initiatives & PolicyMotorolaWashington, DC USAMay 2010

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Air Florida

1982

Three Mile Island

1979

Oklahoma City

Bombing 1995

Space Shuttle Accident 2003

World Trade Center

2001

Hurricane Katrina

2005

Disasters of all types, man made or natural, can strike ANYWHERE and at ANYTIME!

Kentucky Ice Storm

2009

California Wildfires

2008

Tornado Outbreak

1999

California Earthquake

1989

Communications among those responding to a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or other large-scale emergency is the essential component to a successful response

and recovery effort, and ultimately in the ability of a Nation’s emergency responders to save lives and property.

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Significant events and disasters can cause primary communications systems to be lost, diminishing emergency

response effectiveness…

Planning and implementing comprehensive primary and back-up communications solutions is essential to maintaining critical operations

Events Impacting Communications Systems

NATURAL HUMAN TECHNOLOGICAL

Earthquake Terrorist attack Hardware failure

Severe storm (e.g., hurricane, winter

storm)Tampering Interruption of

commercial power

Electrical storm Theft of assets Failure of backup electrical systems

Extreme temperatures

Unauthorized use of system resources

Loss of infrastructure connectivity

Flooding Radio frequency interference

Loss of infrastructure site

facility

Wildfire Interception of signals/ wiretapping

Loss of back room or electronics bank

Lightning Spoofing Software failure

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Lessons Learned

• To ensure preparation for and response to the widest range of crises and incidents, emergency responders must have operable and interoperable emergency communications systems.

• As evidenced by the communications shortcomings experienced during recent events, the US continues to face challenges and make progress on this goal.

• Challenges recognized during these crisis included lack of interoperable equipment at the tactical level, ineffective utilization of available communications assets due to poor resource planning, and an overall lack of integrated command structures.

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The National Strategy for Homeland Security

Homeland Security

Act

The National Strategy for the

Physical Protection of

Critical Infrastructures and Key Assets

The National Strategy for to

Secure Cyberspace

Homeland Security

Presidential Directive 3

Homeland Security

Presidential Directive 5

Homeland Security

Presidential Directive 7

Homeland Security

Presidential Directive 8

National Incident Management

System

National Response Plan

National Infrastructure

Protection Plan

National Preparedness

Goal

HomelandSecurity Strategy

& Legislation

Presidential Directives

National Initiatives

Coordinated Approach to Homeland Security

• Operational requirements

• Interoperability requirements

• State and regional emergency management plans and policies

• National Response Framework (NRF) and National Incident Management System (NIMS)

• Lessons learned from previous events

Disaster Communications Policy

The Department of Homeland Security has identified communications interoperability as one of the key national priorities to achieve the National

Preparedness Goal and has identified emergency response communications as an essential target capability needed to respond to a major event

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Preparedness Implementation

National Response Framework (NRF) is a guide to how the Nation conducts all-hazards response.

National Incident Management System (NIMS) guides all levels organizations to prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of incidents.

• Places responsibility on Federal, State, local, tribal, and territorial governments and agencies for establishing a capability in advance of an incident.

• Includes the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and individual citizens, as appropriate.

• The cycle of preparedness for prevention, protection, response, and recovery missions :

Plan

Organize and Staff

Equip

Train

Exercise, Evaluate, and Improve

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Emergency Communication Requirements

• Prediction, Detection and Situational Awareness–Effective communications, information management, and intelligence sharing are critical aspects of emergency communications. Goal is to foster rapid situational awareness across federal, state and local levels in the event of an incident of national significance.

• Warning and Alerts–Alert the central/regional/local authorities responsible for warning the public and issue warnings to the people likely to be affected - broadcast, sound, radio and television, mobile.

• Response and Restoration–Coordination of response, restoration and relief activities and restoring command and coordination capability when infrastructure and services have been destroyed.

Goal - Implement new programs to foster emergency communications across federal, state and local levels.

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Criticality of Communications Across Responder Organizations

Critical Information Sharing and Coordinated Interoperable Communications Increases in Complexity to Meet the Requirements of a Responder Community

that could Include Tens or Hundreds of Organizations

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Emergency communications must be addressed holistically and not through the lens of one agency or department

Local

Regional

National

State A State B

Local A

Local B Local C

Local A

Local B Local C

Federal A

Federal B

Federal C

Ver

tica

l C

oo

rdin

atio

n

Horizontal Coordination

Solving emergency communications challenges requires an integrated approach

Horizontal: The need to coordinate within the same government level (e.g., federal-to-federal)Vertical: The need to coordinate across government levels (e.g., federal-to-state)External: The need to coordinate outside traditional government agencies (e.g. private sector to government, civil government with military)

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National Emergency Communications Plan

• US Congress required the Department of Homeland Security to create a new Office of Emergency Communications.

• The office centralizes and coordinates emergency communications work at DHS and will promote interoperability among public safety systems at federal, state and local agencies.

• The new office developed a National Emergency Communications Plan to ensure that first responders can communicate during natural and man-made disasters, identify what interoperable capabilities emergency responders need, and include short- and long-term solutions.

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Multi-Dimensional Challenge

Tools for improving emergency communications must take into account all of the factors critical for a successful solution.

Department of Homeland Security Interoperability Continuum

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Nationwide Summary of Communications Plans

Common Technology Themes • System of Systems

– Best practice - when a group of independently operating systems—comprised of people, technology, and organizations—are connected, enabling emergency responders to effectively support day-to-day operations, planned events, or major incidents.

• Shared Radio Systems – Optimal level of interoperability. Shared radio systems support multiple

Federal, State, local, and tribal agencies, consolidate the communications of multiple agencies. Technical, operational, and financial advantages gained by combining multiple agencies onto a common shared radio system.

• Strategic Technology Reserves/Survivability and Redundancy – Developing new systems or enhancing existing assets to provide backup

communications in the event that critical communications are either disabled or destroyed.

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Project 25 is Becoming Increasingly Important for Grant Funding

•“Land Mobile Radio SystemsAll new digital voice systems should be compliant with the Project 25 (P25) suite of standards. This recommendation is intended for government-owned or -leased digital land mobile public safety radio equipment. Its purpose is to ensure that such equipment or systems can interoperate with other digital emergency response land mobile equipment or systems.”

•“Absent…compelling reasons, SAFECOM intends that P25 equipment will be preferred for LMR systems to which the standard applies.”

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Nationwide InteroperabilityMany states have significant investments in large-scale shared networks

22 Project 25Statewide Networks

14 Pre-Project 25Statewide Networks

A Key Enabler for Interoperability is the Existence

or Planned Deployment of Statewide or

Regional Public Safety

Networks

Alaska Arkansas Colorado Idaho Illinois Kansas Kentucky* Louisiana Maine* Michigan Minnesota

Project 25Shared Statewide

Networks Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska New Hampshire* North Dakota* Rhode Island Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Pre-Project 25Shared Statewide

Networks Connecticut Delaware Florida Indiana Massachusetts Nevada New Jersey

North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Pennsylvania South Carolina South Dakota Utah

* conventional

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P25 Statewide Systems - Best PracticesA Key Enabler for Interoperability

Arkansas Wireless Information Network

Alaska Land Mobile Radio

• Federal, state and local systems linked, shared spectrum

• Very large - harsh environment

• Backwards compatibility with existing equipment

• Integrated voice & data

• 17 state agencies, 22 local first-responder agencies, and 11 federal agencies

Michigan Public Safety Comm. System

• Large area 250,465 sq. kilometers

• Variety terrain / population density

• Open standards – multiple vendors

• 97% guaranteed mobile coverage

Technology components are available and widely deployed but job not complete

Governance & training developed and implemented at the local level much progress, but continued incentives needed to drive adoption

• These networks offer a high degree of interoperability within their geographic coverage areas and can be linked to other networks through gateways.

• Much of the communications equipment used by emergency responders is being upgraded to the Project 25 (P25) suite of standards based digital equipment.

• Recent trends towards regional, multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplinary approaches can meet the needs of city, county and local users while improving day-to-day mission effectiveness and incident response interoperability when needed.

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Minnesota Bridge Collapse

"When the bridge collapsed at a few minutes after 6:00pm, the talkgroup load on the system doubled, which was already at a rush hour peak. For the event more than 50+ separate agencies responded "State, County, City, Fire, Medical, Transportation" to deal with the rescue and recovery operations. Cell phone service became saturated and unusable, and even land lines became difficult to come by, the system did have some busies, but when other services were unavailable, the Motorola Trunking system performed."

John AndersonARMER System AdministratorMinnesota Department of Transportation

P25 Regional Shared Public Safety Trunked System Facilitated An Effective Response

(641,423 seconds of airtime in 6 hours)

Why Public Safety Should Control the Design and Operation of Its Networks

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Interoperability Progress Timeline – Progress Is Accelerating

P25 Ph 2 2:1 TDMA trunking standard

completion targeted

2009 2010

Grant funding tied to P25

20081999

P25 conventional

standard completed

Multiple vendors shipping P25

2004

FCC adopts P25 interoperability

standard

US Government agencies Treasury,

Interior, Departments of Defense and

Justice specify P25

ISSI standard defined

700MHz NB spectrum

opens

Multiple CAP testing labs

certified

Multi-band radios begin shipping - 4 vendors announce products

14+ subscriber vendors ship P25

10+ P25 system vendors

Software definable radios begin shipping

1995 2001

700MHz NB spectrum allocated

Multiple vendors shipping 700MHz

capable radios

Go

vern

men

tIn

du

stry

Co

llab

ora

tive

Par

tner

ship

Motorola supports structured interoperability testing, the publishing of formal test reports and led a TIA process improvement eliminating root causes of previous interoperability issues

Motorola and other vendors are validating multi-vendor interoperability following DHS and NIST proceduresand has proposed procedural enhancements to improve testing efficiency and to accelerate progress

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The implementation of an effective, nationwide strategy requires a comprehensive set of near and long-term activities

• Engage government agencies and the private sector to glean lessons learned

• Robustly define the problem and raise the awareness level of disaster communications needs to policy makers

• Develop a disaster communications system planning methodology

• Identify and respond to high-risk areas requiring immediate solutions

• Identify synergies for federal communications programs to more effectively address the problem

• Coordinate with existing communications working groups

• Develop and implement funding strategies for state and local agencies and regional response structures

• Implement disaster communications policy and program changes

• Examine and respond to needs for standards and spectrum requirements

• Institutionalize disaster communications planning into local, state, and federal disaster response plans

• Provide educational and technical assistance to help agencies perform disaster communications planning and implementation

“Near-Term” ActivitiesProblem Definition and

High-Risk Area Solution Development

“Long-Term” ActivitiesEstablishment of a Nationwide Disaster

Communications Strategy

We must be prepared to deploy communications capabilities TODAY, while institutionalizing a culture of integrated disaster planning

and policy development over the long-term