EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING

The definition of an emergency can mean different things to different people. Natural disasters, industrial accidents, crime and acts of terrorism all require well integrated and rapid responses from a number of agencies. One key area that often receives very little or no attention during emergency preparedness operational planning is the provision and use of radio communications networks and services during emergency situations. Consequently, municipal emergency response coordinators and responders must often rely on public systems such as cellular phones and other commercial wireless devices and services to communicate during emergency situations.

These devices are not always sufficiently suited for public safety mission-critical communications. Public safety officials cannot always depend on commercial systems that have the potential to be overloaded and unavailable during an emergency. Even though commercial carriers continue to work hard to ensure uninterrupted service, experience has shown such systems are often the most unreliable during critical incidents when public demand for information or incident reporting overwhelms the capacity of the system or network.

At Spectrum Communications we know that public safety officials have unique and demanding communications requirements. Our experience with many public safety agencies has shown that emergency response interoperability requires radio communication systems with:

• Dedicated channels and priority access that is available at all times to handle unexpected emergencies;
• Reliable one-to-many broadcast capability, a feature not generally available in cellular systems;
• Highly reliable and redundant networks that are engineered and maintained to withstand natural disasters and other emergencies;
• The best possible coverage within a given geographic area, with a minimum of dead zones; and
• Unique equipment designed for quick response in emergency situations—dialing, waiting for call connection, busy signals, or relying on being loaned a radio from another agency are unacceptable during critical events when seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

Spectrum Communications has staff expertise in emergency communications planning and multi-agency combined operations. We also have the technical expertise and rapid response capability to provide, install, and maintain communications networks and systems during an emergency event. Our extensive inventory of rental radios, portable repeaters and generators can be made available to assist municipalities during emergencies. We can work closely with public safety officials to conduct a detailed evaluation of your current communications and interoperability capabilities and provide realistic recommendations and communications system implementation strategies based on municipal goals, schedules and funding envelopes.