Wired on Friday: Last week, New Yorkers relived the horror of September 11th, 2001 when the independent federal commission investigating the terrorist attacks came to the city to question current and former leaders of the Fire Department (FDNY), Police Department (NYPD) and Port Authority Police Department. Over two days of hearings, the city's inadequate communications system and agencies' poor planning came to light, writes Carol Power
Calls to the 911 emergency response system which were recorded and which members of the commission listened to in private showed that callers within the two twin towers, who had no access to the public address system which had been destroyed, were told by the 911 operators and FDNY dispatchers to whom the 911 calls were transferred, to stay in their offices even after the two planes had struck the buildings. One problem seemed to be that the fire and police departments had no way of communicating updated evacuation procedures to the 911 operators who were receiving the calls for help. According to preliminary findings by the independent commission, the 911 system remained plagued by the operators' lack of awareness of what was occurring and by the sheer volume of emergency calls.
Peter Hayden, assistant chief of the Fire Department, said: "we knew that at the height of the day there was as many as 50,000 people in this building. We had a large volume of fire on the upper floors. Each floor was approximately an acre in size. Several floors of fire would have been beyond the fire-extinguishing capability of the forces that we had on hand. So we determined very early on that this was going to be strictly a rescue mission. We were going to evacuate the building, get everybody out, and then we were going to get out."
The commission's preliminary report found that a piece of radio equipment, known as a repeater, that was designed to amplify messages from the Fire Department's hand-held radios, was abandoned by the fire chiefs because they thought it didn't work properly. Instead, they switched to a lower-wattage point-by-point system. As a result of the breakdown in communication, fire commanders lost contact with rescue units in the towers and some firefighters did not receive the evacuation orders.
At 9:00 am on September 11th, the Port Authority Police commanding officer ordered an evacuation of civilians in the World Trade Center complex because of the danger posed by highly flammable jet fuel from Flight 11. The order was issued over a radio channel which could only be heard by officers on the Port Authority World Trade Center command channel. At 9:03 a.m., a plane hit the south tower.
Even now, almost three years after the attacks, it doesn't look like the city is any more prepared to face future attacks. Although Mayor Michael Bloomberg has laid out his plans to overhaul the 911 emergency response system. The 911 telephone system is what New York City's 8.4 million residents rely on to report fires, crimes, accidents and other emergencies. About 32,000 people call New York City's 911 system every day. As it is now, all 911 calls are answered by an NYPD operator and if it's a police emergency the information goes to a police dispatcher who handles the response. A fire or emergency services call is transferred to a separate FDNY operator who takes the information a second time before passing it along to an EMS (emergency medical service) or Fire Department dispatcher who sends help. Although the Fire Department took control of the Emergency Medical Service in 1996, the two agencies still work on different dispatch computers. New Yorkers have been paying telephone surcharges to improve 911 since 1992 but the money raised has done little to improve the system. Two events have accelerated the need for improvement: the blackout in August last year and the loss of the 911 system to parts of the city in March this year.
Mayor Bloomberg's plan, announced several weeks ago, is to set aside $1 billion in capital funds over the next few years for a comprehensive overhaul of the city's 911 dispatch system. In testimony to the independent commission last week he said, "what was the cutting edge system of the 70s is now obsolescent. We will take advantage of new technology to centralize dispatch of our police, fire and EMS departments. By using new technologies such as GPS (global positioning system), we will be able to track our assets and their deployment across agencies." He believes this will make them more "efficient, eliminate duplication, and do a better job of protecting the public." Even now, as his administration is improving the dispatching system, he said, 911 operators have the ability, training and supervision to disseminate relevant rescue information to 911 callers.
The new system, with new software, should eliminate the transfer of calls between departments altogether. The caller will only have to give the information once, it will be entered into a system that can be accessed by police, fire and EMS personnel. The result should mean one 911 call for all emergencies.
The new system will consolidate the city's eight dispatching operations into two identical facilities on opposite ends of New York City working on the same computer system.
Other improvements are under way. Since the tragedy on September 11th, when 343 firefighters died, the Fire Department has introduced new and more powerful radios that permit more traffic during incidents and allow Fire Department officials to communicate directly with their police counterparts. Rivalry between the two agencies has existed for years.
Mr Bloomberg's administration has adopted a Citywide Incident Management System to provide a framework of action for emergency responders and to enhance inter-agency communication and decision-making.
The independent commission concluded its hearings in New York on May 19th and will release its final report about the September 11th attacks in late July.
