Tsunami response reveals poor radio interoperability

State and local public safety organizations still suffer from lack of interoperable radio and information systems to effectively manage response to a disaster, top public safety officials told a House hearing on Thursday addressing lessons learned from U.S. handling of the March 11 tsunami in Japan.

The testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform National Security Subcommittee came against a backdrop of the 9/11 commission, which in January 2004 recommended that U.S. state and local public safety agencies be assigned new radio frequency spectrum to improve communications in emergencies.

The officials told hearing members the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center website experienced "significant problems" on March 11 when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Japan and generated the tsunami.

Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell, deputy director of the Oregon State Military Department and interim director of the state's Emergency Management Agency told the hearing that sheriffs in southern Oregon had difficulty communicating with adjoining jurisdictions, particularly across state lines to Crescent City, Calif.

To improve information exchange at the state and local levels, Caldwell said, Oregon would like to develop its own Northwest version of the Homeland Security Department's Virtual USA information sharing portal used by Idaho, Alaska, Oregon, Montana and Washington.

Oregon's Multnomah County has developed such a site but lacks funds to expand it, Caldwell said. "Had this Web-based system been employed in our coastal counties, the situational awareness [during the tsunami] would have been much better," he said. Oregon escaped almost unscathed from the massive waves that crossed the Pacific, except for one 10-foot wall of water that inflicted $6.7 million in damage to the Port of Brookings, just north of the California border, Caldwell said.

Caldwell said the federal tsunami warning system in March "worked remarkably well, in spite of early technological and [information technology] issues." But he suggested the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center needs to streamline the verbiage in its reports and not send complex files that local safety managers find cumbersome.

Jim Mullen, director, of the Washington State Military Department's emergency management division, testified that the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, "experienced significant problems with their website, which served as the primary source for updated tidal information." The warning center staff inadvertently issued an erroneous message indicating a downgraded threat level at the height of the tsunami alert, he added.

John Madden, director of Alaska's division of homeland security and emergency management, testified that his staffers had anticipated that the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center website would experience high volumes of traffic and outages after release of the first warning bulletin.

Madden said managers at the Alaska state emergency coordination center decided to station an operations staffer equipped with a cellphone and two radios at the tsunami warning center. "Our man with a radio proved to be extremely valuable to continued communications, and will be part of our procedures in all future events," Madden said.

Old-fashioned sirens and National Weather Service radios that sell for $30 or less remain the primary means to alert local populations, the state emergency managers told the hearing. Edward Teixeira, vice director of civil defense at the Hawaii State Department of Defense said 367 sirens in a statewide warning system last month performed at about an 88 percent operational efficiency rate. He added nonperforming sirens soon will be replaced with new ones powered by solar cells.

Caldwell said the tone alert weather radios, which broadcast local emergency information following a series of loud squawks, "are an absolute must for public buildings, hospitals, schools and all public lodging facilities." Washington state, Mullen added, has used funds from the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program to provide low-income families with free weather alert radios.