LACK OF COMMUNICATION TOOLS CAN KILL CITY POLICE, FIREFIGHTERS FIRST TO FACE TERRORISTS, LAST TO GET WAR FUNDING.

Byline: Jack Weiss  Local View

WHILE embedded journalists could discuss minute-by-minute updates from Iraqi battlefields with network anchors via satellite uplinks - communications that were seen instantaneously by television viewers around the planet - local police and firefighters responding jointly to an emergency in America are unable to talk directly with each other across distances of a few yards.

Recently, a congressional conference committee finalizing the war budget bridged this crucial emergency communications gap by supporting a measure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to provide $109 million to help police and fire departments obtain interoperable communications systems.

Former Sen. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman pointed out in their recent Council on Foreign Relations report that ``in virtually every major city and county in the United States, no interoperable communications system exists to support police, fire department and county, state, regional and federal response personnel during a major emergency.''

This failure to communicate led to tragic consequences after the Oklahoma City bombing, during the Columbine massacre, on 9-11 and in the search for the Beltway sniper. The basic interoperability problem is that emergency response agencies use different radio systems and frequencies and often are unable to communicate directly with one another.

The more than 80 jurisdictions in Los Angeles County have difficulty coordinating their efforts in a crisis because they use incompatible emergency communications systems.

The clearest example of the need for interoperable communications is the lesson learned on Sept. 11, 2001. New York firefighters' lives were lost in part because they could not hear the urgent transmissions from New York Police Department helicopter pilots circling the World Trade Center who reported their assessment that the towers' collapse was imminent.

In Los Angeles, the digital radios carried by Los Angeles Police Department officers and the analog radios used by local firefighters cannot communicate with each other.

Although the LAPD has given the Los Angeles Fire Department some of its radios for use during an emergency, generally police and fire commanders play an elaborate telephone game to relay radio transmissions - and during a terrorist attack there is no time for game playing.

Cities such as Los Angeles have learned that we will have to fund some counterterrorist programs on our own nickel.

In the absence of federal funds for basic protective equipment for first responders, the Los Angeles City Council recently voted to spend $4.5 million from the city's coffers to purchase essentials such as gas masks and ``hazmat'' gear for officers.

Unlike one-time equipment purchases that can be handled by cities, communications interoperability is a national issue that requires a federal solution. Metropolitan areas cross jurisdictions, and cities and counties cannot bear the burden of bridging the communications gap alone.

The technology to bridge the communications gap can roll off the assembly lines at a rate of 30 per month and only at a cost of about $300,000 each. For example, the Raytheon First Responder can connect up to 12 communications systems - which could be VHF/UHF radio, telephone, Satcom, HF radio, local operator, etc. - by patching them together with a click of a mouse.

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton says that only four of these systems are required to solve the city's communications problems.

The federal government can close the gap nationwide by quickly making available the $109 million sponsored by Feinstein and improve response capabilities not only in terrorist attacks but also in natural disasters, criminal investigations and other large-scale emergencies.

Although we do not know when or where the next terrorist attack on American soil will occur, when it happens local police and firefighters will be the first on the scene.

We owe it to our first responders to ensure that the communications technology they rely on to save lives is at least half as good as the technology used by embedded reporters to speak to Atlanta, New York and living rooms around the country.