Thinking Regionally

When hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast, the West Baton Rouge Parish and Port of Greater Baton Rouge were unprepared to become the hub of rescue and relief operations.

But as it turned out, the port of Greater Baton Rouge was the only deep-water port on the Mississippi river that had not sustained any storm-related damage from the storms. Plus, the parish is in close proximity to Interstate 10 and rail lines, which made the region the impromptu post-Katrina headquarters for emergency and rescue operations for emergency relief and aid coming throughout the United States. The port was quickly inundated by diverted vessels, residence ships and emergency supply ships, becoming a staging area for emergency equipment, supplies, food, water and fuel being sent to the ports of New Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish. The West Baton Rouge area became a central location for rescue operations.

The port could only rely on its communications system used during regular business operations including cell phones, Internet, marine radios, and communications from river pilots and other emergency personnel and evacuees.

"All of these forms of communications were intermitted in their service, if they worked at all," said Larry Johnson, past president of the Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission. "These agencies were inundated with calls and requests for assistance from everywhere. Responding to the disaster came down to identifying and using available resources and people helping people."

When the proverbial smoke cleared, local officials realized that coordinating rescue and recovery efforts through communications between the parish, port and other interagency groups at the local, state and federal levels was needed. Johnson opened up communications with local agencies and officials to help create interoperable communications. He looked to his neighboring state at Harris County, Texas, which had a highly successful interoperable communications system.

Harris County Texas is the third largest county in the U.S., covering 1788 square miles and includes Houston, the fourth largest city in the U.S. Harris County currently has an impressive regional communications network with 133 channels and 17 tower sites serving Harris County and parts of eight other counties. The system supports approximately 32,000 users and 512 agencies with a coverage area larger than most states. Two new counties are expected to join the network in 2008, which will increase the user base to 35,000 and 550 agencies. Regional subscribers include federal, state and local public safety and law enforcement agencies, fire departments, public works departments, cities, counties, public schools and university systems, as well as the Texas Medical center and private air ambulance services.

"We built this system on the concept of sharing and pulling resources and frequencies so that we can base all frequencies across multiple infrastructures to provide the most enhanced function and use of frequencies," said Steve Jennings, CIO of Harris County. "We're looking at a holistic management system."

The system was built in 1989, when Harris County had a patchwork of more than 15 different independent radio networks. With the help of Motorola it took only nine months that year to build an 800 MHz network to consolidate and centralize those systems into a six-channel system.

"One of the things about having different radio systems that are incompatible is, living on the Gulf Coast, we knew communication was absolutely critical," Jennings said. "There are lots of instances that require resources beyond the scope of any jurisdiction."
After the initial system was built, Jennings realized that the 800 MHz system built by Motorola was powerful enough to serve neighboring counties. Harris County then expanded to a 25 channel system.

Jennings now compares the communication system to a utility company, where frequencies can be allocated in select areas across large territories. Agencies that join the network pay a monthly service fee and get spectrum access, tower capacity and technical assistance. Member agencies continue to control their own communications