By Jeremy Zollo, Deputy Director of State Consultation
FirstNet’s Initial Consultation Meeting with Tennessee focused on the communications challenges posed by Tennessee’s unique geography and sensitive federal facilities. Close to 40 public safety stakeholders representing the major disciplines from around the state and region attended the consultation at the Inn at Opryland in Nashville earlier this year, including Tennessee Highway Patrol Sergeant and Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Ehrin Ehlert. Throughout the consultation process, there has been a high level of participation among neighboring states, and it was great to see Alabama SPOC Charles Murph and Kentucky SPOC Derek Nesselrode in attendance in Tennessee.
The state’s use case presentations involved some unique communications issues, and one attendee spoke to the tragic shootings at an Armed Forces Career Center and U.S. Navy Reserve Center in Chattanooga, which had occurred just a week before the consultation. At the end of the meeting, David Purkey, Director of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), talked about visiting Chattanooga with the governor in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. He said that the state and nation could be proud of the military members and public safety officers who brought the incident to a swift resolution, crediting Chattanooga’s heavy investments in broadband for the lack of communications issues during the response.
Tennessee State Parks & Wilderness Rescue
Shane Petty, Chief Ranger
Tennessee’s state park system has been touted as the best in the nation, but Mr. Petty said that most of what he deals with on a daily basis is not the fun part of working in the parks. He says that he manages more than 300,000 acres of mostly rural parkland, and he deals every day with people drinking, setting fires, jumping off cliffs, and hiding bodies in the woods. Rangers wear many hats, including law enforcement, emergency medical services (EMS), firefighting, and body recovery, but search and rescue is a major component of the job. Rangers work with every state agency at some point and deal with almost every Tennessee county. In addition, they have a need for interoperability with federal partners, including the National Park Service. Mr. Petty said he has numerous communications devices in his truck, but many high incident areas in the park system have no coverage. If someone is injured in a remote area of a park and has to be carried out, the park system relies on a network of volunteers, which also poses a host of communications issues.
Oak Ridge Interoperability
Alan Massengill, Deputy Chief, Oak Ridge Police Department
In Oak Ridge, two thirds of the city is made up of a series of high security Department of Energy (DOE) facilities, including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex. There is a great deal of interaction with federal authorities around these facilities and a high need for interoperability. There are also anti-nuclear protests that take place near the DOE’s complex every year, which public safety plans for ahead of time. The federal facilities drive a lot of the city’s communications decisions and they operate a microwave radio network for voice communications that the Oak Ridge Police Department piggybacks off of. Deputy Chief Massengill said the city was pre-planned and built with security in mind, but the geography of the area’s two valleys makes it hard to get strong coverage in many places. While voice systems have been enhanced in the area, there are still improvements needed for broadband. Even the commercial provider in the area has tried various plans to solve the city’s communications problems without success. There is a lot of equipment in place, but the city lacks a network core and backhaul capabilities, which are key things that FirstNet has the potential to provide in the area.
New Madrid Seismic Zone
Cecil Whaley, Planning and Exercises Branch Administrator, TEMA
Running partly through the western third of Tennessee, the New Madrid Seismic Zone is the most seismically active area of the country east of the Rocky Mountains. It experiences hundreds of earthquakes every year but most are too small to be felt. There has not been a major seismic event since a series of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, which caused the Mississippi River to flow backwards and created Reelfoot Lake. With a major earthquake in this zone, about 60 percent of the damage would be in Tennessee, with the potential for large loss of life and trillions of dollars in damage. The major questions around planning for such a large-scale event would be where help would come from to aid the huge population in the seismic zone, how the response would be coordinated, and how coordinators would communicate with each other and personnel on the ground. While it could be one of the largest public safety events in history, Mr. Whaley said that Tennessee has made huge strides over the last 40 years at the state level to prepare and educate people on the danger.
Cave Rescue
Brian Krebs, Lieutenant, Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Service (CHCRS)
There are nearly 10,000 caves in Tennessee, and people from all over the world come there to explore them. Many of the most popular caves are in rural areas, however, far from emergency responders or even paved roads. If an event happens even at the mouth of a cave, the response time can be lengthy. In Franklin County, for example, the response time to the popular Sinking Cove cave is about an hour, which does not include any entry into the cave. Mr. Krebs talked about the different radio devices that he uses in cave rescue, including a military-style communication system that involves two devices physically wired together. There have been advances in some types of devices like these, including connecting them to smartphones, but even then there needs to be coverage in the area. The CHCRS team uses a text service to push out alerts and coordinates responses with a mobile application, but they need mobile-based computer aided dispatch (CAD) data and locater services to do their jobs more effectively.
I would like to thank Sergeant Ehlert, Stephanie Waye, and all of the other stakeholders in attendance for helping put together such an interesting and successful consultation meeting. We at FirstNet look forward to continuing our close working relationship with Tennessee as we work towards the Request for Proposal(s) and consult with the state to deploy the nationwide public safety broadband network.
-Jeremy
