Preparing for a Telecom Outage

The recent cable-cutting incident in Silicon Valley has gotten me thinking: What does my ARES group need to do to prepare for such an event?

I see two major problems (write me if you think of more):

1. The inability of citizens to report incidents, because their telephones are down, 911 cannot be reached, or both.
2. Disruption of pubic safety communications systems and dispatch centers, such as the landlines connecting voting receivers and remote transmitters to the radio network.

I will address #1 in this post:

If citizens are unable to report emergencies from home because of a phone outage, either we need to find them or they need to find us. This isn’t rocket science: We need to place people at fixed locations where they can be easily found and we need to have people at the usual emergency facilities (fire stations, police stations, hospitals, etc.) where people are likely to go looking for help.

I like a model that places hams at fire stations and other known emergency reporting locations. Why? Stick a ham in a car with “Emergency Communications” magnetic signs on it and a rotating yellow emergency light or strobe on top and people will figure out thats who to talk to. Especially if the fire apparatus is gone and the ham is parked in the front driveway.

In that case, the ham needs to attract attention but really doesn’t need to convince people why s/he is parked on the fire station driveway, sidewalk in front of the cop shot, in front of a neighborhood school, etc.

I think we then place all radio-equipped publicly-owned vehicles (hams could staff some of these) in very obvious locations, such as intersections, where people with emergencies will find them. The BRTs (big red trucks) should probably be assigned to this duty, rather than left at home. While a ham makes a good fill-in at a fire station, a lit-up fire truck will catch attention wherever it is stationed.

I don’t know how I feel about sending anyone on patrol, looking for emergencies. Maybe this works, but unless you have a reason to go into a specific area (heavy dark smoke?) it is probably easier for people to find us than for us to find them. It is also easier to train the community to go to specific places and its something the media can announce when the emergency occurs.

“If you are in Tracy and have an emergency to report, go to your nearest school and look for a city vehicle or a volunteer with a yellow emergency light” is a message the broadcast media could easily put out. Of course, you then actually have to place someone at each of the schools who can handle any requests for emergency assistance.

This, of course, won’t solve everyone’s problems. A person who is, for any reason, unable to leave their home to seek help would be out of luck. I am not sure how to solve that, except hope that neighbors will look after neighbors and especially check on the young, old, and infirm to see if they have any special needs as a result of the emergency.

Is this a workable plan? I think it is but would love to hear your comments.