It was on that day – Sept. 11, 2001 – that New York City’s police and fire departments rushed to the scene of the greatest terrorist attack on American soil, anxious to save as many trapped and incapacitated residents as possible from the burning World Trade Center towers.
But there was one notably significant problem – the two agencies couldn’t communicate with each other.
As police and fire personnel rushed through burning debris and shielded their eyes and mouths from the billowing plumes of deadly smoke, the multiple radio channels used for communication proved to be ineffective to the point of disaster.
“The fire and police in New York couldn’t talk to each other,” said Indiana Integrated Public Safety Commission Executive Director David Vice. “There was a moment when NYPD knew to get out, but the fire department didn’t know the same information.”
Ultimately, 343 New York City firefighters would die in the attack on the twin towers, and their deaths highlighted the need for a complete overhaul of emergency personnel radio systems.
“The biggest impact 9/11 had was it brought an awareness to the policymakers that there were a lot of independent radio systems out there,” Vice said, before going on to discuss similar problems that previously went unaddressed in Indiana.
“The state had their own, along with DNR, [the state Department of Correction], INDOT and others. And in most communities like Howard County, they had their own system, while Kokomo also had their own. The whole state was broken up.”
With many of these same divisions – including Howard County’s 10-channel system – causing a lack of interoperability throughout the state, officials have decided to implement a Project 25, or P25, digital system to increase communications between local and state agencies.
The statewide system, composed of six implementation phases, is expected to be completed sometime in mid-to-late 2016. Howard County’s personal P25 implementation will take place roughly a year after a vendor contract has been signed later this year.
The upgrade, which state officials have discussed since 2010, will, in the words of Vice, provide officials responding to danger with the “next step in technology. ... They will have better coverage.”
As part of that coverage, responders now carrying three, even four, radios will see their load reduced to one simple piece of equipment that will connect them to any P25 compatible radio system throughout Indiana.
But most importantly, the switch to Indiana’s P25 system will allow for simplicity of conversation in the most dangerous of times, according to Howard County Sheriff Department’s 911 Communications Center Director Gary Bates.
“If we go over to a house in Tipton County, our officers can be in a situation where they are on one side of the house talking on our system, but Tipton officers are on the other side talking on the state system,” said Bates. “They’re not talking. And if a guy runs out of the door, they can’t communicate.
“With this new system and interoperability, the officer can switch to the appropriate talk groups, and all they have to do is say ‘hey’ to the other officers, and tell them someone’s coming."
P25 System and Interoperability
As Bates explained, Howard County’s law enforcement officials and other first responders currently experience untimely communication trouble in a number of instances.
But there seem to be two situations that stick out – when officials travel out of Howard County and when other law enforcement officials travel into the county.
“Another perfect example is a recent pursuit that went to Frankfort. Once they get out of our radio range, they don’t have radio connection with hardly anyone,” said Bates, explaining that without being on a Motorola system, local officials are unable to connect with the state’s radio system, a problem P25 will eliminate.
In addition, dispatch officials have had to supply state troopers assigned to Howard County with locally compatible radios due to the current incompatibility of the state system to the local system.
“[Deputies] had to call [the dispatch center] back on a cellphone, and we would relay that information to state troopers with our state radio,” he added. “But again, if they go into a situation where the car is stopped, and you have Kokomo Police Department and Sheriff Department officers on one side and a state trooper on the other, they couldn’t talk.”
While the patching of different radio systems – a technology Bates called “antiquated” because of distance limitations – and mutual-aid programs are currently available to officials, Bates pointed out the difficulties that will be addressed by the P25 system.
For instance, to currently use a mutual-aid program, or accessible talkgroup, in the middle of a police chase to communicate with out-of-county officials, an officer or deputy needs to completely change “radio makeup,” Bates explained.
In effect, this means the officer not only becomes non-communicative with Howard County’s dispatch center but is also required to physically adjust a number of settings in the midst of a high-pressure situation.
But the presence of a new P25 system will allow for maximum interoperability, defined by the U.S. Department of Justice as “the ability of field units and agencies to talk and share data in real time, when needed and as authorized.”
Essentially, officials in pressurized situations will only need to change radio stations to connect with any P25 compatible system in Indiana’s counties or within state agencies.
Once P25 is implemented statewide, Bates said, communication with other counties and state agencies will go from a series of patches and phone calls to the simple turn of a knob.
“If an officer right now does interoperability, then dispatch won’t be able to talk to him because he has to go off our system,” he said. “But when P25 comes down, all he will have to do is turn the channel on the radio and be able to talk to any county or state agency.”
In addition to an increased interoperability, the P25 digital system will also improve one very vital aspect of first responder communication – the ability to utilize a radio while deep in a building.
“Once a fireman or a police officer gets in a building, the reception is really bad,” said Bates. “One of the technological advances is that with a digital system you will get the same signal from towers for 13 miles out.”
Timelines
In addition to safety and communication concerns, there is one very practical reason for the timing of the P25 implementation.
With Howard County’s current analog system experiencing its “end of life” in 2013, or the end of spare-part manufacturing and the disappearance altogether of equipment by 2017, the switch to P25 is a much-needed move.
"The current system is 20 years old, and it has reached end of life."
“The necessity is the current system is 20 years old, and it has reached end of life,” said Howard County Commissioner Paul Wyman. “In 2017, it will be difficult to service or get parts.”
As part of the switch, the county will also need to make adjustments to the radio system’s backbone, or infrastructure. Included in those efforts will be the addition of two new radio towers, one in Greentown and another in Russiaville.
The towers, which haven’t yet been given a precise location, will join the current tower located on Berkley Road.
“Building towers in Greentown and Russiaville, replacing radios and everything else is a year-long process,” said Bates, who expects the process to start by the end of 2015 after discussions began two years prior. “It will take one year to implement the program. This is good timing because the project will be completed in 2016 right before the off-the-shelf time.”
As Madison County Emergency Management Agency Executive Director Tom Ecker explained, the county’s timeline and addition of two radio towers seems appropriate, as his own county needs double that infrastructure amount.
“I would say they have been on an appropriate timeline, about the same as us,” he said. “You need to evaluate systems, look at companies, evaluate their capabilities, and really just evaluate everything. And it takes time to do that.”
As for the differing need of infrastructure towers, Ecker said the discrepancy is largely the cause of each county’s layout.
“With Howard County, you can get two towers and cover the whole box,” he said. “We need four towers because of length. The number of towers doesn’t mean a thing. It is just dependent upon the county makeup, and there are a lot of low spots in Madison County.”
In relation to the state’s timeline, Vice hopes to have the first phase migration started in January, with each subsequent phase coming every 60 days.
As of now, Howard County sits in the fifth of those six phases, meaning the state’s implementation will likely come in late 2016.
“When we initiated this, we told all state and local agencies that we are going to be very deliberate in our first phase because we weren’t sure of all the issues,” said Vice. “We also wanted to make sure that locals and state agencies had their radio situations figured out.”
Funding for P25 in Howard County
According to Wyman, the total price tag for the project will run somewhere from $6 million to $7 million, a cost he hopes can be split into multiple payments.
Splitting the cost into two payments – the largest of which would come prior to the state’s implementation phase in Howard County – is something Wyman sees as a possible alternative to imposing a short-term public safety local option income tax increase.
The basis behind splitting the payments, he said, would be to first begin implementation of Howard County’s local P25 system before later spending money to tie the system into the statewide program following the fifth phase.
“Financing is largely going to depend on where the final price tag comes in,” said Wyman, noting that the county has yet to receive any grant funding for the project. “If we’re able to do the modified version, and it is a significantly lower number at first, then we are going to look at certain things like cash-on-hand and short-term financing.
“If it ends up having to be the full deal, then we will look at the public safety tax or some kind of a bond issue to cover it. You just have this whole array of financing options and really, what it is going to boil down to is the final size of the project we agree upon based on when the state is ready to go.”
While Wyman indicated that any sort of tax increase was the least attractive funding option, he was clear that it wasn’t something officials believe they can currently take off the table.
If a tax were to be implemented, Wyman explained, it would include a sunset clause taking the tax out of effect after the necessary amount of funding was received, which he expects would take roughly 18 months.
“You’re talking about a multi-million dollar project when moving from a 20-year-old system to current technology,” said Wyman, noting that a funding decision could be finalized within the next two to three weeks. “Everything is being investigated. We are trying to piece everything together. We haven’t eliminated anything specifically, but I think we have ideas on how to move forward.
“I would think we can find ways to accomplish this without raising taxes,” he later added.
As for the financial responsibility among differing government agencies, Wyman said he expects each group will pay for its own radio upgrades and replacements, with the county possibly being solely responsible for the program’s infrastructure.
“If the county looks at that and says, ‘We can handle that,’ then we will. And if everyone takes their pieces, it will come together nicely,” he said. “I do expect that the city and county will take care of their own equipment. I’m not sure if I have that same expectation for the system as a whole, meaning the backbone and the infrastructure.”
Those final decisions will ultimately be made within a continuing group of governmental meetings held between city, county and other affected officials, noted Wyman, making clear the progress left to be made.
“We’ve had numerous meetings on payment over the last couple months. From the county standpoint, we will take care of who we need to for the county’s first responders,” he said. “But at the moment, I can’t talk specifically about the rest. ... There are a handful of moving parts.”
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©2015 the Kokomo Tribune (Kokomo, Ind.)
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