Capitol Hill Raises Flag On Katrina's Telecom Concerns

Telecom Policy Report, Sept 12, 2005

While most of the political fallout from Hurricane Katrina has focused on the economic impact, costly energy disruptions and the performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, federal lawmakers also have begun looking at the often-discussed concerns about the high vulnerability of general telecom services during disasters and the specific susceptibility of emergency communications capabilities on all governments levels.

Last week's reconvening of the U.S. Congress' regular session following the massive storm and destruction brought with it a sort of tropical-weather depression with some uncomfortable heat and rising pressure. Among other things was a nearly eight-and-one-half-hour hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives' full Committee on Energy and Commerce surrounding the long-term implications of recovering from Hurricane Katrina's Gulf Coast damage. There also was a separate call by one of the committee's members, Rep. Bart Stupak (D- Mich.) for the White House to fund and implement an interoperable, inter-agency communication network for first-responders in the wake of the disaster (TelecomWeb news break, Aug. 8, Aug. 7).

The marathon House session on Sept. 7 - run by committee chair Joe Barton (R-Texas) - included two panels with a total of 13 witnesses giving testimony. There were descriptions of destruction and disruption of wireline and wireless communications systems and efforts to cope and rebuild the systems outlined by Kenneth P. Moran, acting director of the Federal Communications Commission's Office of Homeland Security (within the Enforcement Bureau) as well as from William Smith, BellSouth's CTO.

Besides the FCC actions appearing in the related story in this issue of TPR, Moran (primarily responsible for coordinating the commission's support of the disaster relief efforts) told the lawmakers that "most of the communications industry sustained tremendous damage" to facilities in the affected areas and damage has had a significant impact, including a hampering of rescue operations of emergency responders.

The Real Extent Of The Damage

Hurricane Katrina knocked out more than 3 million customer phone lines; more than 1,000 cell sites; and scores of broadcast stations in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, according to Moran's assessment. He also said satellite service providers have helped bridge some of the gaps left by the outages by providing satcom phones and video links to law-enforcement officials, medical personnel, emergency relief personnel and even news outlets; Iridium Satellite said it was among those providers.

"Survivors lack information about relief efforts," he stated. "People displaced from their homes do not have the means to contact their loved ones to let them know they are safe. And of course, survivors remaining in the affected area lack a reliable means of contacting the authorities and getting help in life-threatening situations."

In looking at the communications-infrastructure breakdown in the affected region, legislators touched upon the costs among carriers; the impact on residential and business consumers; and what were construed as either missteps or intrinsic problems of official communications among first-responder, emergency-aid and law-enforcement service organizations on all government levels.

Essentially, lawmakers were faced with articulating the obvious, i.e., a frustration with the fact that much of the official communications simply are dependent on the commercial infrastructure. Moran reminded legislators that the FCC's Network Reliability and Interoperability Council, consisting of government, carrier and manufacturing representatives, addresses numerous continuity and disaster-recovery issues and plans yet, in the final analysis, the commission acts primarily as a catalyst for private-enterprise carriers because "90 percent of the assets are private-enterprise-owned."

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) worried that the official communications challenges essentially will remain unresolved, adding, "it sounds like it can happen again." And Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) suggested the FCC and other government agencies consider more effective contingency systems and services, including satellites and emergency spectrum use. "How many local governments have a communications plan when everything fails?" she remarked.

Stupak's Continued Crusade

A day earlier, Stupak released a letter he wrote to President George W. Bush that cited widely reported communications-system breakdowns, and inadequacies among military personnel and other emergency-service workers as two of many reasons to fund an interoperable emergency network. He even quoted Maj. Gen. Harold Cross of the Mississippi National Guard as saying he was using "runners" to carry messages among field commanders.

While costs for full interoperability are estimated at $18 billion, Stupak charged that, for the second year in a row, the president's budget "completely zeros out" specific funding for interoperability. He charged that four years of his appeals for interoperability and legislation to fund interoperability have fallen on deaf ears.