Panel: Disaster communications still lacking

06.03.2006
Six months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the country is a bit better prepared for a major disaster -- but numerous obstacles remain, a panel of communications experts said late last month.

The complexity of modern communications networks, both wired and wireless, makes responding to a disaster not only technically difficult but politically and culturally troublesome as well, said Andrew Lippman, director of the MIT Media Lab.

The roundtable discussion of emergency preparedness issues, sponsored by Avaya Inc., a Basking Ridge, N.J.-based maker of communications networks, included communications specialists from the public and private sectors.

The panelists agreed that there remain enormous obstacles to building an adequate widespread disaster response program. For example, the task of ensuring radio interoperability among local, state and federal agencies could take years to complete.

Lippman noted that the response to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was more efficient than the emergency efforts that followed Katrina in New Orleans. At a time when communications technologies were limited, a single entity -- the U.S. Army -- quickly took control of emergency operations.

"In those days, communications didn't exist, with no phones in homes or pockets. They didn't have TV. And yet command and control worked," Lippman said.