NYC: Public Safety Answering Center 2

[Guest]

[April 01, 2006] 

911 upgrade a slow process: Nearly five years after 9/11, the city's plan to improve communications between emergency responders through 911 backup system is stalled

(Newsday (Melville, NY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 1--

Four and a half years after the World Trade Center disaster cast a spotlight on the city's emergency readiness, a long-planned project to improve police, fire and medical communications through a 911 backup call center remains glaringly incomplete.

Formally known as Public Safety Answering Center 2, the new facility would handle all 911 calls should the main answering center crash because of a technical glitch, human error, or a terrorist attack.

Its introduction would be part of an overall upgrade that would streamline emergency calls, authorities say.

There are other areas, though, in which the NYPD reports progress in improving how officers are sent to crime or emergency scenes. Electronic message boards have been installed at Metrotech, the current Brooklyn dispatch headquarters, to update all personnel on important information, police said.

A lieutenant platoon commander is also on site at all times, providing verbal updates in certain situations, a step put in place as a result of the Citywide Incident Management System, the post-Sept. 11 plan designed to coordinate how the FDNY and NYPD respond to acts of terrorism or other emergencies.

Those changes came after a hard review of the communications system. The 9/11 Commission's final report said the police and fire dispatch systems "were not adequately integrated into the emergency response."

The report said the operators and dispatchers were the only source of information for people in the Twin Towers, but they were not informed of the gravity of what was happening at the scene.

Plans for the delayed backup dispatch center also drew attention after Sept. 11 as part of the larger communication system.

A second center was first proposed more than 10 years ago. Today, officials stress the need for theory to become reality in the city considered the No. 1 terrorist target in America.

"It's just not an acceptable situation," said Peter Vallone (D-Queens), chairman of the City Council's public safety committee. "It's extremely dangerous to not have this backup center.

"It's bad enough if someone's house gets burglarized and the call does not get answered, but if we're attacked and we have no backup system, that's a disaster on a much bigger level."

Public Safety Answering Center 2 was due to be built next to police headquarters in lower Manhattan, but the events of 2001 changed that, with city officials deciding that site is too close to both headquarters and to Metrotech, the Downtown Brooklyn headquarters for the 911 system.

There have been several 911 problems since then, including a shutdown for three hours in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island in March 2004 because of a Verizon worker's mistake.

It appears now that the answering center will be built in the Bronx, near the Bronx Psychiatric Center, as part of what the city calls the Emergency Communications Transformation Project.

"I certainly would like to see that go forward as quickly as possible," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Friday. "What you're going to have are two centers operating contemporaneously. So if something happens to one center, the other center can pick up the calls, pick up the whole volume."

The Bloomberg administration has appropriated $1.3 billion to revamp the 911 system.

Included in the plan is an upgrade of Metrotech, with fire dispatchers moved there from the five borough facilities out of which they now operate.

The money will also allow the city to better streamline the 12 million calls placed to 911 dispatchers each year, with police, fire and EMS dispatchers operating on the same computer system and eliminating what the city says is a delay each time a caller is re-routed to a dispatcher from a 911 operator or is asked to repeat information.

But David Rosenzweig, president of the Fire Alarm Dispatchers Benevolent Association, said consolidating 911 operations at Metrotech is a big mistake.

"I don't think that building could withstand a terrorist attack," said Rosenzweig, who thinks the money would be better spent improving the borough facilities that now house fire dispatchers.

Authorities say construction of the second answering center could start as early as next year.

[JBE 328]

Normally I disagree with my union president on a number of things. But this is one I am with him 100 percent. Renovate the FDNY dispatchers offices and leave things alone. Putting us in Metrotech is a dangerous gamble to take. I've said it a million times, it isn't too far fetched for Johnny Jihad to take a Ryder truck filled with explosives and drive it right down Flatbush Avenue and BOOM!!! 2/3 of the cities' emergency communications are wiped out in one shot. Truck bomb number two down Jay Street, BOOM!!! EMS Communications gone. I honestly don't have a problem with EMS moving into our offices. I really don't.

The PSAC idea, IMHO is not feasible in this city. The only good thing to come out of it would be a computer system that we can all use. If they want to build these centers as back ups in case the main buildings get wiped out, fine. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.

[ny10570 745]

Forget johhny jihad...How many buildings in NYC in the last 20 yrs have been rendered unusable by some other accident or emergency?? Sh!t happens. A central back-up (capable of housing all three services in an emergency) makes sense, but give each their own updated and linked dispatch center.

[JBE 328]

The problem is, smaller cities are going with these PSAC, or PSAP(public service answering points) and singing the praises. IMHO, yet again, is the powers that be in City Hall think this is the way to go for NYC. Unfortunately, the PSAC model for us is best served as a back up, or kept open with a skeleton crew in the event there is a major problem and there is no loss of function in the time it takes for the dispatchers to man the fallback positions.

[grumpyff 1,159]

I agree that putting all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea. I can't imagine putting all the dispatchers in one place. Last year in Transit, our dispatchers lost all ability to transmit to units in the field. They are in MetroTech. It was almost 45 minutes until they were able to get the back up site working. The back up site is also in downtown Brooklyn. I would rather see the dispatchers spread out, but connected by high speed intranet connections, with the ability to share info quickly, and if need be cover the others dispatch ability in case something occurs to one dispatch site.

[JBE 328]

How's that working out for you guys?? Isn't there also some sort of center for the TA being set up in Midtown??

[Dr. Zuki 1]

How about putting it on Governor's Island which is virtually inaccessible to unauthorized visitors???

[JBE 328]

Might be too much for the city, and it isn't necessarily isolated(seaborne attack). Not to mention the city owns the property and would probably rather get a large investment into the island as opposed to public facilities.