Risk Factors With Wired Systems
Communication is a vital factor during emergency situations in buildings. This includes fire and explosions, both of which can take out wired telephone and Internet systems in a flash.
But it took the fatal events of 9/11 to bring this reality home to the Fire Department New York (FDNY) and other officials. The most evident, hugely publicized, shortcoming for firefighters was their inability to communicate with the Fire Command Center that was located in the lobby of the Twin Towers.
In short, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack that resulted in a devastating inferno in the Twin Towers after two planes had crashed into the buildings, communications systems that relied on electric wiring were useless. This included a computer-aided dispatch system. At the time, radios were outdated and radio signals were adversely affected by the fire. Phones lines were jammed. Furthermore, Fire Department and police services personnel were not in communication with each other. Ultimately, evacuation efforts failed to be 100% effective and many lives were lost.
It is not clear why or how police communications were notaffected, although it seems that they had repeaters that improved communications.
A total of 2,763 people died at the World Trade Center after the airborne attack. This included 343 firefighters (60 of whom were off duty) and paramedics who had responded to the call, as well as 72 law-enforcement officers who were trying to evacuate occupants of the affected buildings. It took less than two hours for the two 110-story towers to collapse, which in turn caused the collapse of many other mostly high-rise buildings.
It took a while – nearly a decade – but NYC specified a code that would ensure implementation of a system that would enable firefighters to communicate with the fire command center in any building, regardless of circumstances. Critically, the systems they have introduced now allow the incident commander at a fire command center to issue an evacuation order all firefighters will be able to receive and respond to.
The initial fix for the FDNY was the introduction of high powered radios with batteries and antennas that FDNY firefighters were required to “wear” or carry. These enabled them to communicate effectively within concrete and steel high-rise buildings. These also eliminated the need to change radio channels and required no additional training.
The NYC Building Code was changed in 2008, eight years after 9/11, with a section on firefighter communications included for the first time. But there was a real need for a good interpretation of what an approved radio communication system was. This was developed by the FDNY Fire Prevention Unit.
Specifications for the first FDNY radio communication system were published in 2011. Significantly, it stated that an auxiliary radio communication system (ARCS) was preferred to hardwire phones which they wanted to be eliminated by codes.