Drill tests communication reliability in disaster

By T.J. Aulds

The Daily News

Published May 7, 2010

TEXAS CITY — In the biggest mobilization since Hurricane Ike, emergency management teams and state agencies converged Thursday on Galveston County for a drill. The focus of the drill was to make sure communications between a variety of groups will work when the next disaster strikes.

The communications exercise coordinated by the Texas Division of Emergency Management coincided with hurricane planning drills in Harris and Galveston counties, state officials said.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said the test run was to see how well communications could be set up after a disaster that knocked out most of the power or communications devices, such as what happened in some cases after Hurricane Ike.

“The reason to do this is if something bad enough comes along and we have to get all hands to come running, we make sure all the (communications devices) are working,” Mange said.

From satellite telephones to data transfers via HAM radios, emergency management crews from Travis County, the city of Austin and Williamson County, as well as local teams, tested their communication equipment.

The drill also afforded the military an opportunity to show off its latest toy.

Members of the Rapid Response Task Force of the 272 Engineering Installation Squadron of the Texas Air National Guard put its new “satellite-based interoperability communications package” through the paces.

In short, it’s a communications hub.

“It’s designed to get all of the various entities in these exercises to be able to talk together,” Master Sgt. Harvey Hartsman said. “It allows everybody to be able to talk to each other. That was a problem following the World Trade Center disasters (of Sept. 11, 2001). We had all these emergency crews, but none of them could talk to each other. This package helps solve that problem.”

The small, white trailer that houses the hub is one of 17 that eventually will be deployed throughout Texas, Hartsman said.

It is self reliant and provides access to phones, satellite communications, emergency radios and the Internet.

One of the system checks included linking the radios of emergency management personnel stationed in Texas City with staff at Camp Mabry in Austin via a satellite phone link. The crews also were transferring data to a center in Montana using HAM radio links.

The idea, Hartsman said, was to have the ability to get communications up and running in a disaster zone within hours and access to outside help. He said the center is not reserved for military use but was established to help local entities such as police departments establish communications in case regular communications systems fail after a disaster.

Once on site, the center can be set up in less than an hour, Hartsman said.

Bruce Clawson, the emergency management coordinator for the city of Texas City, said that should another Ike-like disaster come the county’s way, Texas City likely would become the coordinating point for communications and disaster relief. He said the drill Thursday was vital in better preparing outside agencies to come in and provide assistance when the next disaster strikes.