By Christopher Heredia
San Francisco Chronicle
Copyright 2007 San Francisco Chronicle
All Rights Reserved
SAN FRANCISCO — Dozens of Bay Area police, fire and transit agencies will be able to talk to each other on a single frequency during a disaster, making the region the first in the nation to coordinate all its emergency communications systems, officials promised Tuesday on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Working through a joint powers agency, the authorities will spend two years on a plan to replace the patchwork of radio frequencies or spectrum whose flaws were apparent during the 1991 East Bay hills fire and after the 1989 earthquake.
During those disasters, as in the response to Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina, technology hindered so-called first responders from communicating with each other.
“This is a $200 million effort to get us all on the same plane,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, speaking at a Treasure Island news conference with Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and dozens of law enforcement and fire officials from as far away as San Jose. “This is a big first step.”
Dellums and other leaders said it will take two years to get the system fully operational. So far, the cities have received $32.5 million in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to pay for the upgrade. Paul Rose, a spokesman for Dellums, said officials have identified additional funding, although they do not know when the money would be allocated.
By 2009, officials said, Bay Area residents can rest assured that emergency crews will be able to talk with one another and respond where help is needed in major disasters such as fires, earthquakes and terrorist incidents.
San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, along with Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Marin and Santa Clara counties, will have access to one common frequency that they will use to communicate with each other. State emergency officials in Sacramento will also be part of the regional partnership, along with transportation agencies including BART.
“We’re here to say we all get it,” Dellums said, speaking of the efforts of the Bay Area Public Safety Interoperable Communications Initiative. “In an unprecedented fashion, we’re coming together in great collaboration to create the capacity to communicate in a way that hopefully will save lives and limit suffering. It’s not a question of whether we will experience a man-made or natural disaster. The question only is when. Therefore, we must be in a capacity to address those problems.”
Officials said that authorities in rural and urban areas of the region will be able to relay critical information as well as daily communications by using 700 MHz and VHF channels. During the East Bay hills fire and the Loma Prieta earthquake, many first responders were unable to reach each other by radio, a technology flaw which some say cost precious time, lives and property.
Officials said Tuesday that it was appropriate to announce their plans for a fully functioning communication system on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States. In New York on Sept. 11, 2001, fire and police were unable to communicate with each other over radio frequencies. Cellular and landline connections were overrun or down, thwarting the relay of critical information.
“One thing we can take away (from 9/11) are the lessons learned,” said San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White. “We don’t want to have to repeat these losses. ... It’s very important to realize that in large-scale emergencies, be it natural disasters or something man-made, that the borders go down and we do cross jurisdictions.”
Alameda County Undersheriff Rich Lucia said such a uniform Bay Area communications system will come in handy for day-to-day law enforcement operations as well as during major incidents.
“We’re taking it to the next level,” Newsom said. “Cities will be able to communicate in real time with other cities as well as with authorities up in Sacramento. This is unprecedented. When complete, it will be the largest and most cooperative interoperable system in the nation.”