Since the dawn of time, humans have been searching for better ways to communicate in times of war, crisis and disaster. The message does not have to be long to get the desired result. The ringing of the town bell, the lighting of a signal fire, a billow of smoke, a light from a flare, a blast from an air raid or a tornado siren, the strategic placement of one or two lanterns in the old church tower to signify if the British were coming by land or sea, any of these signals could alert the recipient of the message to exactly what they were supposed to do.

Today, with modern communications systems — mobile phones, radios and the Internet — why does every disaster or exercise after-action report highlight communications as a major issue? With more reliance on cellular and UHF radio communications, public safety organizations find themselves dependent on a modern technology infrastructure to support their inter- and intra-agency communications, and communications with the public. If you compound the problem with overloaded systems and lack of interoperability between organizations, the problem becomes critical.

Billions of dollars have been spent to create new and more reliable communications systems, free up underutilized radio frequencies and develop systems that make interoperability a non-issue. However, one major hurricane or winter storm could render most of the technology useless during the stage of the event that it’s needed the most.

In the event of a disaster, APCO International recommends communications centers be prepared for inoperable systems, as well as loss of power, security and personnel. In addition, comm centers should focus on training and planning for system restoration, multi-agency response and evacuation.

Nontraditional Communications Solutions
Sometimes the best solution is the simplest one. Take Volusia County on Florida’s east coast for example. Its emergency operations plan calls for runners on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) to relay critical information between the disaster scene and the emergency operations center. The use of runners is a practice frequently used by bomb squads across the country when radio use is prohibited. Why not use the same technique when traditional communications methods are unavailable?

Another best practice can be taken from many of the older fire departments in the U.S. The Milwaukee Fire Department, for example, repurposed its old copper wire from fire alarm pull boxes around the city to create a backup voice communications system. Several U.S. cities have followed that model and even transmit data over these old networks.

In yet another example, public safety organizations around the globe have relied on an old technology to ensure their communications work even during the worst of times. In times of disaster, amateur radio operators have been the lifeline of communications when all other methods have failed.

Unlike other systems, amateur radio is not as reliant on ground-based systems that can and, often do, fail. The system is dispersed around the world and is redundant by nature. Landline and cellular communications systems can quickly become useless even if the infrastructure isn’t damaged, simply because there aren’t enough sites and towers to handle the volume of communications during a disaster. With amateur radio, if one operator goes down, they are backed up by dozens or hundreds more in a given area.

Additionally, amateur radio operators can improvise antennas, relays and power sources quickly and set up systems to transmit data. With access to hundreds of radio frequencies, they can solve the interoperability issue by bridging agencies together and establishing radio networks.

Amateur radio operators were used in New York and Washington, D.C., after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. During Katrina, more than 5,000 amateur radio operators from all around the U.S. provided emergency communications assistance.

But amateur radio isn’t the only technology used to communicate during times of disaster. This next example can be learned from our teenagers. When landlines and cellular telephones either failed or overloaded during Hurricane Katrina, police, fire and other government officials were able to communicate with each other through text messaging. And while public safety agencies in some areas could not communicate at all, others were able to use Twitter, update their blogs and send e-mails around the world through analog functions on their cell phones.

The reason these types of communications can get through when a cellular or landline network is overloaded is because the system keeps trying and transmits short messages and packets of data very quickly once a connection becomes available. A land-based or cellular phone call, on the other hand, requires numerous systems and pieces of equipment in various locations to be continuously and simultaneously available to work.

Public Education
Text messages also allow many more people to communicate than if they were making voice phone calls on the same equipment and lines. This point is so valid that the Safe America Foundation has created an entire campaign around the use of text massaging during a disaster, called Drill Down for Safety. According to Len Pagano, the foundation’s president and CEO, the program is receiving wide acceptance across the country. In the past two years, Drill Down for Safety has expanded to five FEMA Regions and had 40 states with more than 700,000 people participating in drills in 270 sites across the country. “While first responders know their job, we’ve not really progressed in the last decade at helping people know what to do in the first 72 hours after a disaster — when they’d largely be left to survive on their own,” Pagano observed. “Our program, focused on individual readiness and family/community drills, will seek to correct this gap in national readiness.”

Pagano further noted that the Safe America readiness program includes a smart phone educational program designed to teach people what they can do in an emergency to text and stay in touch with family members. This practice alone will eliminate hundreds of thousands of calls to local officials and humanitarian organizations in the search for loved ones after a catastrophic disaster.

Government Emergency Telecommunications Service
If these methods don’t work and telecommunications systems get overloaded, there is still hope for federal, state, local and tribal government, industry and non-governmental organization (NGO) personnel performing their National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) missions. The Government Emergency Telecommunications Service (GETS) is a White House directed emergency phone service provided by the National Communications System (NCS) in the Department of Homeland Security.

GETS provides emergency access and priority processing in the local and long distance segments of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). It is intended to be used in an emergency or crisis situation when the PSTN is congested and the probability of completing a call over normal or other alternate telecommunication means has significantly decreased.

You have to sign up for GETS in advance. For more information, visit http://gets.ncs.gov/index.html.

Participate in TERT
As anyone in the fields of public safety or emergency management knows, even with all communications systems operating at full capacity, the sheer volume of emergency communications can quickly overwhelm available personnel, let alone the handling of routine communications. That’s where a Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT) comes into play.

TERT is a comprehensive program that includes assistance to individual states in developing programs that would lead to the establishment of predetermined and selected trained teams of individuals who can be mobilized quickly and deployed to assist comm centers during disasters.

Some of the states currently participating in the TERT program have further expanded their programs to be able to actually deploy into command post communications at the scene of disaster(s) in the field.

Plan for Communications
The bottom line is that without communications almost all other disaster and emergency plans and SOPs are rendered useless. Emergency operations plans, comprehensive emergency management plans, COOP plans, SOPs, SOGs and functional annexes should have robust communications plans that not only address communications systems and backups, but also account for alternative power sources and facilities.

As described above, these examples represent some of the best practices taking place in disaster communications across the country. With catastrophic disasters on the rise and more people living in densely populated urban areas, we must find alternate ways of communicating between agencies and the public we serve to save lives, protect property, and respond and recover from disasters in a more coordinated fashion. The lack of proper planning for communications can be a killer. Hope is not a plan.

Sidebar: 6 Ways to Back up Your Communications
You need to plan ahead to ensure backup communications strategies are in place. Some of the following strategies will require an up-front investment in time or equipment, so review your plans today.

1. Use runners on all-terrain vehicles;
2. If possible in your area, repurpose copper wire from fire alarm pull boxes to create backup communications systems;
3. Get to know your area hams, and establish protocols for amateur radio use during disasters;
4. Explore the power of social networking media now;
5. Sign up for GETS; and
6. Get involved in TERT.

About the Author
Adam Montella is vice president of homeland security and emergency management for Animus Solutions Inc. Montella has more than 25 years of direct homeland security and emergency management experience in the government.

Originally published in Public Safety Communication magazine, 77(01):38-41, January 2011.