The 2006 hurricane season is officially upon us, and as I write this Tropical Storm Alberto is spinning towards the West Coast of Florida. It is anticipated that the storm will drench major portions of the State with heavy, flood-producing rains and potentially spawn damaging tornadoes.
Thankfully, we learned our lesson last year with Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita... right? Not according to the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. According to a
recent article in Federal Computer Week:
On the first day of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, the ability of government at the federal, state and local levels to deal with major disasters is no better than it was when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region last year.
That is the overwhelming consensus of government and private-sector technology experts who convened in Washington, D.C., this week for a conference sponsored by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers.
The session's panelists said efforts to create systems that allow seamless communications among emergency organizations and employees are more likely to be thwarted by poor interagency cooperation, such as the inability to agree on common standards and operating procedures, than by technological limitations.
In our April 2006 report,
The Imminent Storm 2006, we came to a similar conclusion, noting that technology is but one component of communications interoperability. The FRC recommended that "
The Federal government should coordinate with state and local agencies to implement regional emergency communications interoperability," and that to achieve this "
there must be both coordination and cooperation between agencies and at various levels."
An important first step all parties at the state and local level can, and should, take is to set aside their political differences and agree to put public safety first. Or, put simply, "lose the egos." Lives depend upon it.
This will enable the Federal government to not only take a leadership position, where appropriate, but develop a
collaborative relationship with state and local officials to help them develop regional solutions to the emergency communications crisis.
