Hermiston Herald
April 16, 2002

Report: CSEPP needs radio system in place

By Frank Lockwood
Staff writer

HERMISTON - CSEPP's communications system needs to be standardized to reach
all potential responders, a report to Center for Disease Control claims. The
report comes as no surprise to emergency workers here, who have been working
for years, trying to overcome obstacles to buying, installing, and
maintaining a 450 megahertz radio system.

The task has been daunting. Because they doubt they will have the new system
in time for the surrogate test burns, scheduled for May, the CSEPP
Governing Board and Executive Review Panel have contemplated starting up
Umatilla Chemcial Disposal Facility surrogate burns without the
450-megahertz radio. If they did that, they would likely recommend the
governor require the new 450 system to be in place before actual agent is
incinerated at Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Hermiston,
Oregon.

The report to CDC says that the "desirable radio system" must enable all
pre-hospital vehicles, and hospital facilities to communicate with the
appropriate incident command positions and emergency operations centers.

The system will require repeater and microwave networks to cover the
distances and topography between communities. Presently, ambulances of one
community can not always talk to the hospitals of another, nor can all
CSEPP-designated hospitals speak with each other.

The system must allow communications to be continuous and uninterrupted
throughout the region. Frequencies should be compatible with others used by
CSEPP entities. The health and medical radio network should be
inter-operable with the incident command structure. The system would be
useful day-to-day, augmenting or replacing outdated and unreliable
equipment.

Each hospital would be set up as a "node," and a repeater would be placed at
the facility. Hand-held radios would be used within and around the hospital
building. A likely real-life CSEPP scenario would likely call for an
outside-the-hospital decontamination and medical treatment station, "It is
reasonable for CSEPP to provide a system with this capability," the report
said.

Another "layer" of preparation would require the installation of repeaters
and other technologies to connect the outlying areas of the communities and
to connect communities with other communities.

Ambulances would then be able to communicate with the hospitals and with
each other from distances beyond the immediate areas around the hospital,
and hospitals would be able to use the system to send and receive
information to the emergency incident managers.

Emergency managers say the 450 megahertz system which is presently under
consideration would likely meet the requirements mentioned in the report.