Published: July 19, 2007 11:49 pm      

Improved communication aids responders

David Hanig was on a Penn Hills ambulance crew sent to Johnstown following the 1977 flood.

Although their job was to relieve overwhelmed local emergency crews, Hanig recalled the arrangements were less than efficient.

“One of the problems there was: Everybody was on a different (radio) frequency,” Hanig said.

That meant at least one local emergency worker had to ride along with the out-of-town crew to provide a radio and locate addresses.

Today, Hanig is director of Johnstown’s integrated emergency operations center on Broad Street. The multimillion-dollar communications and planning operation coordinates response to large-scale emergencies.

In addition, its round-the-clock staff tracks developing situations to send out alerts and evacuation advisories.



‘We’ll save lives’



Silhouetted in the 100-foot projection screen, Hanig said the technology and early-warning system are light years ahead of what was in use in 1977. But considering the late hour and sudden onset of that disaster, Hanig is hesitant to state the operation would have reduced the impact.

“Would it have saved lives?” Hanig said. “I’d like to say so, but I’m not sure. If we have warnings, we’ll save lives.”

The center’s trained experts can track National Weather Service rainfall data and forecasts to identify at-risk neighborhoods. As the threat becomes imminent, the county emergency communications center can activate its “reverse 911” automated system to call every affected home with a prerecorded evacuation alert.

Emergency phone service is not the only communications improvement since ’77.

Today, all Cambria County police and fire departments can communicate on the same frequencies and there are attachments that can patch radios in to any other emergency networks, watch officer Dan Ruhe said at the operations center.

“Interoperability: That’s the in-vogue word right now,” Ruhe said.

Although cellular phone networks promise improved communications, the systems are often overloaded during emergencies, Ruhe said.

“During Katrina, the cell system was the first system to fail,” he said. “Everybody was trying to use it.”



‘You work as a team’



Locally, responders at the Flight 93 crash site were also hampered by an overloaded cellular system, so the Region 13 emergency response task force brought a “Cellular on Wheels” mobile command post booster truck, Ruhe said. Region 13 is has been recognized as a model for regional response organizations.

The 13-county Southwestern Pennsylvania group combines resources of fire departments, law-enforcement agencies, hospitals and numerous local, state and federal agencies serving the region.

The task force has pushed for funding to ensure communications remain open. Richland Township Fire Department, for instance, has a ham radio station in its headquarters.

“The beauty now is, there are a number of different redundant systems,” Hanig said.

Dr. Michael Allswede began working closely with Region 13 when he was associate professor of emergency medicine at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He continues his association as director of Memorial Medical Center’s emergency and disaster medicine residency program.

He has investigated emergency services around the world as a member of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Biomedical Security Institute. Allswede co-authored Interpol’s “Bioterrorism Preparedness Guide.”

Southwestern Pennsylvania is more prepared than many other areas because communities cooperate, Allswede said.

“I think people in this part of the country have stronger inclinations to work together,” Allswede said. “I don’t know if it’s the Pennsylvania stock and the history of steel mills and coal mines where you work as a team.”