Emergency Preparedness – If Not Now, Then When

Emergency Preparedness – If Not Now, Then When?

Bruce Elbert

President

As published in November, 2005, SatMagazine.com

The past 12 months have made clear to all who care to observe that satellite communications are the lynch pin of urgent need – whether we are speaking of disaster response or remote operations under dangerous conditions. The old saw, “It wasn’t raining when Noah started building the Ark,” definitely applies to this field. When disaster strikes, order gives way to confusion and even chaos and many plans go out the window. Time and again it is proven that communications are the key to overcoming the infamous “fog of war” as well as the disruption of vital emergency services.

There are many vehicles to providing communications during a domestic emergency, including high frequency and VHF radios provided by the various safety services, often augmented by volunteers who are radio amateurs (“hams”). In recent years, those who engage in emergency and remote operations have come to expect the same means of communications that they have in the office and at home. Broadband applications that include high-speed computer data and video must now be addressed so that a wider array of services can be delivered in the field. For this reason, broadband L- and Ku-band links from GEO satellites are at the forefront.

Lessons learned from recent disaster situations and military operations overseas make clear that better planning and pre-purchase of satellite communications assets must be addressed. The challenge is that there are a limited number of GEO satellites that adequately cover a specified area of operation. In particular, satellite capacity was subject to overbooking in areas where a multitude of users needed to go. These included emergency response teams at the state and federal level, US military who were enlisted to deal with devastation and rescue and recovery operations, the news media that viewers expected to be on the scene immediately and to remain through all of the action, and crews engaged in the restoration of failed landlines, cellular services, utilities and critical commercial resources (e.g., oil refineries and drilling platforms in the Gulf). Demand for transportable and mobile earth stations and small terminals exceeded supply, resulting in delays and gaps in service.

At the full-day workshop on disaster response held on October 25^th, 2005, in New York City by the Global VSAT Forum, presenters from every corner of this question spoke about their experiences during Hurricane Katrina, the Asian Tsunami and other recent situations. The competition for satellite bandwidth was a well known consequence of the demand; less known were the steps that satellite operators like NewSkies, JSAT and PanAmSat took to accelerate the process of delivering critical bandwidth and power to remote users. Similarly, Cap Rock and Lyman Brothers rapidly added inventory of trainer-mounted VSATs that were rolled off the production line and fielded in the Gulf states and Florida. All the while, Inmarsat, supported highly-portable means of telephone and medium speed data services.

My experience in the US Army Signal Corps taught me many lessons in communications preparedness. Something as simple as keeping your bag packed allowed me to jump onto a helicopter and make it to the front lines of HF/VHF/UHF radio communications. The beauty of how we operated in Vietnam is that our communications trucks were ready to roll at all times, because the US government had made the investment and Signal lieutenants like me were responsible (operationally and financially) for the equipment and operators. Good preparedness today amounts to much the same thing.

The obvious solution is to arrange ahead of time for the required bandwidth and equipment, as well as the people to employ them. This means that the user must have a good handle on communications requirements before committing to these expensive resources. The market for transportable earth terminals offers many options: vehicles with mounted antennas, trailer and skid mounted VSATs, portable stations that can be carried on the back or into a commercial aircraft, and light-weight “lap-top” and handheld devices that offer the greatest convenience. The quantity and variety of these options will likely increase in the future.

Companies like Cap Rock, Lyman Brothers, Intelsat General, GlobeCast and Inmarsat have already made the necessary financial commitments to offer these services, but users must quantify what they need and where it may have to go. Also, it’s not enough to define the needs at the remote site; there is the question of what’s at the other end of the link. Users should pre-arrange for interconnection to centers for management and coordination (i.e., emergency operations centers) along with the people, plans and procedures that go along with it.

Another important ingredient is practice, which includes the process of conducting drills and tests. There is nothing more useless than resources that were purchased ahead of time which fail to deliver at the time of need. The only proven way to know that your disaster response communications will be there is to exercise it on a regular basis. This is something that ham volunteers do weekly in Ventura County, CA, as part of the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service. This allowed us to jump into immediate action when the county was affected by fast-moving brush fires and mud slides of the recent past.

To close this discussion, I would like to cover some technical issues for which those engaged in satellite communications always need a watchful eye. Broadband satellite communications from Ku-band satellites employ dual polarization from orbit positions two degrees apart. The issue of adjacent satellite and cross-polarization interference requires as much or more attention during a disaster than in normal day-to-day operation. Incidents of interference are perhaps more devastating when a critical activity is underway and communications become impeded. For this reason, operators of remote sites need to adhere to standard practices of the satellite operator, including using certified equipment and properly aligning their uplinks. Automatic control of user terminals, such as currently employed in L-band mobile satellite communications, is a viable alternative for assuring service quality in such dynamic environments.

We must be prepared for the difficulties that exist at a disaster scene. Hurricanes obviously produce high winds and intense rain, which threaten ground antennas and electronics. Therefore, communications may not be feasible until the storm has departed. Satellite phones that use L and S band LEO constellations are not affected by rain attenuation, but using one of these devices outside in a torrent is probably not an option. Small portable terminals that employ GEO satellites from Inmarsat, Thuraya, and ACeS can be used inside during the storm as long as they have a line-of-sight through a window, for example. Again, the independence that satellite technology affords is its strategic and tactical advantage.

All of this is feasible and some groups have already taken appropriate steps for true disaster preparedness through satellite communications. Addressing the cost of arranging for equipment, satellite capacity and operators well in advance of the need is the challenge we all face. Another saw is worth remembering, “You don’t get a second change to prepare for a disaster.”