Washington – Only six of 75 U.S. metropolitan areas won the highest grades for their emergency agencies’ ability to communicate during a disaster, five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a federal report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
A draft portion of the report, to be released today, gives the best ratings to Washington, D.C; San Diego; Minneapolis-St.Paul; Columbus, Ohio; Sioux Falls, S.D.; and Laramie County, Wyo.
The lowest scores went to Chicago; Cleveland; Baton Rouge, La.; Mandan, N.D.; and American Samoa. The report included large and small cities and their suburbs, along with U.S. territories.
Denver received an intermediate score.
The report said all 75 areas surveyed have policies in place for helping their emergency workers communicate.
But it cautioned that regular testing and exercises are needed “to effectively link disparate systems.” It also said that while cooperation among emergency workers is strong, “formalized governance (leadership and planning) across regions has lagged.”
The study, conducted by the Homeland Security Department, was likely to add fuel to what looms as a battle in Congress this year.
Democrats who take over the majority this week have promised to try fixing the problem emergency agencies have communicating with each other but have not said specifically what they will do, how much it will cost or how they will pay for it.
“Five years after 9/11, we continue to turn a deaf ear to gaps in interoperable communications” – the term used for emergency agencies’ abilities to talk to each other, said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke would not comment on the report, saying only that in releasing it today, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will “talk about nationwide assessments for interoperable communications.”
In the report, the Denver Police Department and agencies in surrounding counties received an intermediate score in the category of governance, meaning that while some formal agreements exist and informal practices are undertaken, regional strategic and budget planning processes are still being put into place.
The Denver metro agencies scored higher in the categories of standard operating procedures and usage, meaning regional procedures are in use and control has been instituted by all agencies and disciplines in the region. Also, first responders use interoperability solutions regularly and demonstrated the ability to achieve multi-agency communications.
Most of the areas surveyed for the study included cities and their surrounding communities, based on the assumption that in a major crisis emergency personnel from all local jurisdictions would respond.
