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43
Architecture for an Emergency Lane on the NII: Crisis
Information Management
Lois Clark McCoy and Douglas Gillies
National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue
and
John Harrald, NIUSR and George Washington University
Statement of the Problem
Responses to disasters, both natural and man-caused, are usually
multiorganization, multijurisdiction events. This inherent
organizational complexity compounds the chances for missed
communications, inadequate intelligence regarding the event, and
the consequent escalation of both the size and the cost in lives
and dollars of that event. For their actions to be consistent,
coordinated, and constructive, responders must have a common
understanding of the problems they face—a common "mental map."
They must also be able to quickly create an organization capable of
meeting the disaster-caused needs.
The national information infrastructure (NII) with its new
information technologies, properly applied, has the ability to
greatly improve disaster preparation and response, thereby reducing
the cost of these operations. The technology has the potential of
supporting emergency managers in four critical areas: (1)
supporting crisis decision making, (2) managing information
overload, (3) supporting first responders, and (4) capturing vital
information at its source. Within this paper we suggest a strategy
to build a command and control, computing, communications, and
intelligence (C4I) system for
civilian crisis management. It will bring with it the new C4I doctrine, new emergency
organizational networks, and technological standards to ensure
seamless interlinking and interoperability. The proposed
architecture for the NII that will provide an emergency lane on the
information highway is developed in the Recommendations section of
this paper.
The implementation of the new technology of information must be
combined with a sober realization that immense cultural changes
will occur within the emergency management community. If we focus
on only the technological aspects of this change and do not
consider the users' need to feel in control of the new technology,
adequate assimilation of the great benefits to be derived from it
could be delayed by years.
State of Present Play
The field of the civil emergency manager is particularly caught
up in this technological and cultural change. At the same time that
emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes seem to be escalating by
the month, the emergency manager is caught between the old and the
new. Traditionally, the field of emergency management operated in
an area of scarce information about the event, whether hurricane,
riot, or chemical spill. Today, emergency managers are overwhelmed
with a glut of information. Suddenly, they have neither the
training nor the tools to handle this level of data. A well-known
paradox of information management is that decisionmakers with too
much information act just like decisionmakers with too little
information—they make decisions based on their personal
experience and expertise, not on an analysis of the current
situation. The technology provides no added value if all it does is
provide additional information to an already overwhelmed
decisionmaker. In the face of this rapid change, emergency response
and mitigation have lagged behind the general rate of acceptance of
the new information technology. Now, with the support of the
Clinton administration and the revitalized Federal Emergency
Management Agency, it is full steam ahead. However, the
difficulties involved with any dramatic change still remain.
Page 365
We, living and working at the change of the century, are the
"'tween" generation. Here is this new technology on the one
hand—new, untrusted, and fearsome. On the other hand, there is
our intuitive judgment developed through hard-won experience. We
are indeed caught on the horns of a dilemma.
History during other times of great change may have a lot to
show us about a saner and more harmonious way to survive this
frenzied fin de siècle we are thrashing through. It
is a misconception that the average person is threatened by change.
People are threatened only by changes over which they believe they
have no control!
Emergency managers are singularly beset by this phenomenon as
they are encouraged to adopt new technologies and methods. Most of
these managers have had long experience in the field of disaster
relief and rely on this knowledge as the basis on which they make
their decisions. The more competent the commander and the more
complete the knowledge, the better the decision.
But now managers are confronted with a new 21st-century
technology—command, control, computing, communications, and
intelligence (C4I) systems. These
systems can provide great support to the emergency manager. They
can provide information as concise knowledge that can be quickly
understood. They can interpret, filter, and correlate knowledge for
making rapid projections and estimates. This is a completely new
environment for the emergency manager. Where he or she once
operated (and had learned to be comfortable with) uncertainty, now
the environment is filled with technologically derived knowledge.
Knowledge possessed by experts not at the scene can be made
available to the emergency manager either through remote
communications or by the use of expert systems. That is a
monumental change. It brings with it the often-heard phrase,
"That's not how we do it here!" An important part of this rejection
of new ways and new tools is a lack of trust. The emergency manager
has no sense that he or she owns them and does not feel in control
of the technology or of the information it provides.
Analysis of Factors Influencing the
Realization of an Emergency Lane on the NII
After a 3-year program of "town meetings," the National
Institute for Urban Search and Rescue (NIUSR) has identified the
needs for new-age, interlinking communications in time-sensitive
arenas.
A most useful tool in overcoming the lack of trust in new
information technology is the use of simulations in exercises and
demonstrations. Experience is a great teacher, but where in the
real world can one gain that experience in a relatively risk-free
environment? In the field of emergency response, too many lives are
often in jeopardy to risk trying out new technology in real
circumstances. Under stress, emergency managers, even after buying
and installing new technology, will tend to revert to their
experience and intuitive judgment, which are comfortably familiar
and have served them well in the past. One of the statements heard
often from the observers in the follow-up days of recovery from the
Northridge earthquake was, "We never saw so many computers lining
the walls with no one using the information." In times of great
stress, we all return to the known ways of management, command, and
control.
The new technology continues to become more easily used—and
more "fun" to learn. The development of the World Wide Web is only
the beginning of an evolution that promises to provide a bridge
into the new technology for hard-won experience and intuitive
judgment. The seasoned emergency manager now has a tool that lets
him or her feel in control. The manager can "see" the links into
the information and ask for the piece of information wanted, rather
than sifting through reams of data spewing out of a machine. And,
most importantly, the manager can see this information displayed in
a visual "picture" that allows him or her to quickly assess the
situation. The manager has grasped the knowledge within the
data.
The first step in achieving an effective conversion of raw data
to knowledge is to import that information in a form that is easy
to use. "A picture is worth a thousand words" because of the
comparable speed with which the brain assimilates one printed word
and one picture. With all the picture's background and emphasis,
the brain perceives a much greater range of data in
microseconds.
The World Wide Web enables the emergency manager to (1) choose
the information wanted, and (2) see it displayed on an interactive
graphic representation as a picture of the information in the
setting of the emergency. To this, add the pre-event simulation
training that permits the emergency manager to trust the
information being
Page 366
delivered. At last we begin to convince the experienced,
knowledgeable commander that this ability to control and respond to
the emergency has been improved to an exponential degree through
the sophisticated use of information technology. No longer are we
using new technology to merely pave over the cow path (ICMA, 1994).
We have moved into another realm of control. We own the future and
it is ours.
The Barrier for Cultural Change
One of the idiosyncrasies of the civilian emergency manager is
that both of the words "command" and "control" are forbidden. They
send up red flags on the site of any emergency. Who's in charge?
has always been a poorly understood question within civil
authority. "Battles" can start on Main Street over this question
during the disaster itself. So the emergency management community
has elected to hide behind the word "coordinate". This euphemism
must be discarded. This doublespeak must be reversed. Someone has
to bite the bullet and be in charge! Lives are at stake, resources
must be expended in increasing amounts, dollars must be spent.
Command and control must be present at the disaster scene. Too
often, civilian response is a matter of individual
heroism—emergency responders, both paid and volunteer,
performing over the top in their noble efforts immediately
following the event. Uncertainty is the environment of any
emergency. The longer this uncertainty remains, the higher the cost
in lives lost, property damage, and recovery costs.
Obviously the emergency coordinator must assume command and
control. The emergency coordination may be a multilevel, joint
command, or a unified command with one spokesman. This type of
arrangement must be practiced, simulated, and tested to be quickly
effective. One timely adjunct for the civil emergency environment
was the adoption, in November 1994, of a national Interagency
Command System (ICS) for the multiagency response to large-scale
disasters. The National Interagency Command System is built on the
original FIRESCOPE and National Interagency Incident Fire Control
models of the old Boise Interagency Fire Control Center. It enables
the user to limit the uncertainty of the disaster scene quickly.
After all, the deciding factor in the successful control of any
emergency has always been time. Among other pluses, the new
information technology provides the huge advantage of shortened
time frames for the development of real information the commander
may use in exercising his or her knowledge and judgment.
Uncertainty will always be a factor in any response to emergencies.
If we have complete control and adequate resources to respond, it
is not a crisis! It is merely business as usual for the emergency
provider. When there is a lack of trustworthy information and a
scarcity of resources, combined with a lack of control, then the
true hazards of the emergency environment appear.
One of the continuing problems in the response to any large,
multiagency effort has remained the coordination and movement of
resources between and among the various responders. The vertical
coordination among like agencies (for example, among law
enforcement agencies) may proceed with a degree of smoothness.
Likewise among the responding fire agencies, coordination tends to
remain cooperative and responsive. However, when different agencies
such as public works or transportation or social services are
brought into the multilevel response, attempts at coordination
among dissimilar modes of communication and departmental methods of
operation lead to confusion and incompatibility. Further
complicating coordination, government and volunteer and nonprofit
organizations have different styles of operation. The American Red
Cross and the Salvation Army have key roles to play in disaster
response. In addition to these formal organizations whose presence
is anticipated, it is a well-documented phenomenon that ad hoc
groups emerge to deal with unanticipated needs during the disaster
response. These organizations do not all have to be tightly linked,
but their actions must be consistently coordinated if the needs of
the victims are to be met. The inability to coordinate policy,
logistics, and operations escalates again when multiple agencies
from different jurisdictions and levels of government are involved.
The fractionalization of coordinated response is even further
adversely affected when military assistance and its chain of
command are requested by civil authority, and yet another system is
mixed into the command equation.
Page 367
Forecast for the Next Five to Seven
Years
A 5- to 7-year forecast is a difficult (and perhaps foolish)
undertaking. We do have some current trends, however, that indicate
what this future might be. The Internet is growing at 15 percent a
month. The World Wide Web is doubling every 53 days. We will take a
look at the future, but the traditional rules for predicting future
time lines may be another victim of the rate of change in
information systems.
One unexpected and highly beneficial spin-off from the cross
communication possible on the Internet and the World Wide Web has
been the blurring of vertical authority and its consequent concerns
for the protection of "turf." Both the Internet and the Web operate
across many platforms in a seamless fashion. No one may be sure
where or how most of the queries originated. Within the parameters
of authorized access, the information is available to all.
Interoperability may be the most beneficial of all the various
aspects of the new information technology. We have left behind a
time when emergencies were synonymous with uncertainty. Now
emergencies, and indeed, our daily business lives, are filled with
a glut of information. The next big breakthrough in information
management will be in software filters such as profilers. Some even
predict that there will be an entire new industry of personal media
assistants who will filter your information, marking for your
attention only that in which you have indicated a major interest.
For emergency managers, a system to filter the data glut must have
a real time component that may be better served by expert systems,
or the reasoning support of knowledge robots ("knowbots"). Such
expert systems, simulations, artificial intelligence, intelligent
decision support systems, or even some other new tack may be the
next exciting advance in the field of information management.
Expert systems are currently pushing the edge of the technology.
To date there have been some well-documented failures of attempts
at such systems. These failures fall into three classes.
•
Level one. Errors of commission, in which
human operators make a programmatic error of commission—the
old garbage in/garbage out problem.
•
Level two. The programmer forgets to input
some data altogether and it goes unnoticed. An example would be the
Gemini V space shot that landed 100 miles from where it was
supposed to come down. Some programmer forgot to input the motion
of the earth around the sun into the re-entry program.
•
Level three. This is the most difficult,
and interesting, of all the sources of error. This is where a group
of parameters about the real world in which the program has to
operate is input, and where, after these parameters are input, they
change. This has been called the "Sheffield effect" after
the British destroyer sunk in the battle with the Argentineans. The
ship's program had the Exocet missile (developed by a NATO ally,
France) identified as friendly. However, in the arsenal of
Argentina, it was decidedly unfriendly, and it sank the
Sheffield.
Current work on expert systems (not artificial intelligence) is
wrestling with two interesting parameters. They are optimal
ignorance and appropriate imprecision. Not to delve too deeply into
this subject here, let us just say that these are ways to limit the
amount of data to something that the machine can handle without
thinking itself into a corner and freezing up. The downside of this
approach is that the expert system, in many ways, is like an idiot
savant. It can do one thing superbly, but only that one thing. The
use of parallel processing at a remote site using high-performance
computing could provide a solution for the near term. In this way,
the smaller storage and performance PCs at the site of a disaster
could download the solutions and data summaries provided by
high-performance computing on-site processing. Such processing is
currently infeasible in real time in the field. Under the current
limitations of disk drive storage and the huge amounts of memory
needed for image processing and correlation of disparate databases,
it is not possible to process such needed information in the
field.
And we desperately need another capability for the emergency
manager. We need the ability to sort, digest, summarize, and
prioritize data into information, and further, into intelligence.
We need to be able to convert data into usable decisionmaking tools
in nanoseconds. We need the integrated decision tools that will
enable an emergency manager to apply this information to the
problem at hand.
Information technology has the ability to provide solutions to
these old problems, or it will have in the near future. Information
technology's true value is in its ability to provide the new while
enhancing the old. The new is the rapidity with which real, trusted
information can be provided in an easily understood picture for
the
Page 368
commander. The old is the hard-gained experience that provides
the knowledge and judgment of the emergency manager.
The ability of the emergency manager to comfortably use the
enormous capability of the new technology is not a matter of
purchasing the new ''goodies" to reside on a shelf as another
status symbol. It means learning an entire new set of tools for
responding to uncertainty. It means developing a hands-on
familiarity to these new tools. Just as the driver of a
high-performance race car must learn to skillfully use a stick
shift, so must the emergency manager learn to use the tools of the
new information technology—not merely learn to use that stick
shift, but to be thoroughly comfortable with it and to feel as
though it were an extension of his or her own hand.
Some emergency managers will make this effort. Some will not. In
all cultural changes, some adapt, and some are overrun by the
change. Some continued to lay keels for four-masted schooners after
Fulton invented the steam engine. Some continued to make buggy
whips after the coming of Henry Ford's Model T. Our emphasis within
the NII must be on those millions who are jumping onto the Internet
and the Web every day. We must focus on those who take the leap of
faith into the new. Every change is cluttered with gatekeepers
whose very existence is intended to keep change from happening.
At every crossway on the road to the future,
each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to
guard the past.
—Maurice Maeterlinck, Nobel Laureate
Rather than worrying about those who will be left, we must focus
our efforts on making these new technologies comfortable for those
who are joining the new generation. Almost everything negative that
one can hear about the computer revolution was said 50 years ago
about the radio. All the dire predictions of the cultural changes
brought about by the radio—for example, listening to baseball
games instead of going down to Wrigley Field—never came true.
Baseball is still baseball.
There is now an entire subset of people who are as comfortable
with a computer as they are with a telephone. They are lost without
it. Millions are carrying smaller and smaller versions of their
business and personal lives with them—in the car, on
airplanes, and on vacations. Shortly, all those with a computer are
going to have to buy another, more powerful one. The World Wide
Web, multimedia, graphics, and all those wonderful (and let us not
forget, fun) things eat disk space. They need enormous increases in
the speeds of transmission. The market is huge.
Recommendations: An Architecture
for the Emergency Lane on the NII
The National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue has developed
an architecture that has great promise. It is simple, involves
off-the-shelf components, incorporates tested systems already in
place, and uses new technological applications. It is the
development side of the equation rather than research that now
needs attention and focus.
The Crisis Communications Management
Architecture
Central to the concept of the crisis communications management
system is the NII initiative that can provide the opportunity to
make dramatic steps forward in crisis information handling. Let us
envision this new information and communications support system as
succeeding grids laid one on the other. The first layer of the grid
is in space. It consists of space imaging and sensor information in
all its multiforms. The second layer is a seamless communications
grid, transparent to the operator. This communications grid
contains virtual networks within the tactical area as well as
national networks. The third and final layer is the tactical grid
from which we conduct the crisis operations.
How then do we link all this information into one understandable
"picture" of the crisis for decisionmakers? To do this our
communications architecture must provide both decisionmakers and
tactical users with a picture of the crisis that artificially
replicates the reality of the emergency. This suggested civilian
crisis
Page 369
communications management system is patterned upon the
successful Copernicus architecture of the U.S. Navy (USN, 1993).
The brain child of Vice Admiral Jerry O. Tuttle (now retired),
Copernicus was developed while Tuttle was director for naval space
and electronic warfare. It is considered a communications milestone
for the Information Age. Interestingly, the similarities in
operational needs and constraints between electronic warfare and
crisis management are greater than the differences. The most
obvious difference, other than scale, is that the end result of
crisis management is safety and recovery, rather than destruction.
Although the end result is different, the methods of communication
and information exchange are remarkably similar.
The crisis communications management system must supply a
doctrinal, organizational, and technological management system
applicable across all functions, agencies, and organizations of the
crisis management response, regardless of their position in it. The
system must be readily adaptable across the levels of participation
as the response either escalates or decreases. It must also
incorporate the widest space imaging system, including the global
positioning system, space imaging and interpretation, weather
surveillance, and so on. The interfaces must be synergistic and
seamless across the disaster area and operationally transparent to
the user regardless of the affiliation, level of response, or
component. In addition, the system must integrate command and
control, information processing, resources and transportation,
levels of responsibility, tactical operations, and on-scene data.
Such capabilities must be coordinated across the crisis arena and
vertically up and down the levels of stakeholders.
The Communications Grid
Central to the communications grid are the wide-area computer
networks that link the commands and activities of the
decisionmakers and stakeholders to the response activities at the
scene of the disaster. They are configured on a regional or
operational area basis and are constructed to transport,
standardize, and concentrate sensor, analytic, command, support,
administrative, and other data for further passage to incident
commanders.
The communications grid will use current and planned common-user
communications systems, such as the evolving national
communications infrastructure, and the present interlinking media
communications networks for multimedia communications. The National
Institute for Urban Search and Rescue believes that the emergency
environment will become far more data-intensive and require far
more technological agility in obtaining, handling, and transmitting
data than we have experienced.
A second and equally critical development over the last 10 years
has been the growth of small computers, both personal computers and
workstations. Although the latest growth in computers has been
astronomical, we see an even greater increase in their speed and a
great reduction in size. Hand-held computers will soon be in the
field with nearly the same processing capability as today's desktop
configurations. The incident commander does not necessarily want to
sit at a screen and pull up windows. He or she will likely want a
"telestrator"-type of system that enables writing on the screen and
placing objectives visually to be transmitted. We must be sure that
this rapid growth supports industry standards and open systems
architecture.
The establishment of "information highways" and the movement
toward open systems architecture make possible the aggregation of
many disparate agencies and organizations. These entities,
potentially involved in catastrophes and disasters, are defined not
by physical boundaries but by data addresses and a common software
"veneer."
The Regional Hubs
The regional hubs are regionally oriented and contain the major
sensor and analytic nodes, both for state and national data. The
number and nature of the regional hubs are intended to be dynamic
so that the architecture can support the particular desires and
needs of the area. For example, to construct a logistics, weather,
planning, and/or contingency system simply means developing a
software veneer for the common hardware "engines" envisioned as the
building blocks of the communications grid. We can also envision
contingency hubs as well as the major regional hubs.
Page 370
The Command and Control Complexes
A second part of the communications grid includes the command
and control complexes. For those agencies with significant areas of
responsibility for civil emergency operations, such as the U.S. Air
Force as executive agent for inland search and rescue, the U.S.
Coast Guard in its responsibility for the maritime area, and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency for its role in natural and
man-made disaster, command complexes will be dedicated. Significant
differences exist between the regional hubs and the command
complexes. The regional hubs are an aggregation of "communities of
interest"; the command complexes are an aggregation of command
structures in the particular area of responsibility.
The Information Centers
The third part of the communications grid consists of
operational information constructs, not communications networks.
The regional hubs and the command complexes will share a consistent
tactical picture through this series of information constructs.
Like the regional hubs and the command complexes, the information
centers are not physical but virtual "nets," established at the
request and in the mix desired by each incident commander.
The information contained in a single node may be provided via
several communications channels or vice versa. These information
centers spring from an operational decision about where to send
data between the emergency and the regional hub. These nodes will
be thought of in three conceptual planes:
•
The technological and custom protocols for the
exchange of information for technical applications;
•
The operation data layering—that is, the
doctrinal decision to place the data on a particular distribution
network and route it to a particular incident commander's
workstation; and
•
The transformation of data to information, which
is a function of the software interface on the tactical
computers.
Communications consultant Charles R. Morris writes in the Los
Angeles Times that the term "information highway" may not be
the most appropriate description for the wireless infosphere of
innumerable paths of information to any destination. He believes
that "ocean" more realistically describes the process—one
where all data perpetually circulate until searched out and plucked
down by an intelligent agent embedded in each personal data
assistant (Campen, 1994a).
The information centers may support eight formations of
communications services and three cases of precedence. Radio
frequency (RF) communications will be undetectable, except to the
designated and cooperative receiver. A glimpse of the near future
includes RF signals that will all operate on top of each other,
below the noise and with featureless wave forms. Parasite
information will ride on carriers, and antennas will be broadband,
high gain, and electronically steerable. They will be used to
access multiple satellites simultaneously in various orbital planes
along with terrestrial high-capacity data links (Busey, 1994).
The number of information centers will not be fixed. Instead,
they will be connected for the length of time necessary to
transport the data to the users for the incident and then
truncate.
The information centers are classified into three broad
categories—a menu is a good analogy—by "communities of
interest."
•
Information Center—Command will
service the decisionmakers. These information centers are
envisioned as multiformat, including teleconferencing.
•
Information Center—Support will
include such pathways as an environmental, logistics, database-file
transfer, imagery, geographic, and narrative message pathway. This
is the only information center that is envisioned as carrying
narrative.
•
Information Center—Tactical will be
constructed around the tactical needs of the response forces. Since
the variety of emergencies can be quite different and are dependent
on the mission and the resources at
Page 371
hand, these
centers are seen to be a mixture of both predetermined information
services (perhaps associated with Standing Operations Procedures)
and virtual information services created dynamically only for the
duration of a particular event. These centers can comprise both
preexisting and user-created information groups.
The Tactical Grid
The tactical grid is conceived as a wide-area system, a network
of small communications links that tie all units operating in one
tactical area together regardless of the agency or function. The
differences between the communications grid and the tactical grid
are functional. The communications grid provides connectivity,
which facilitates the movement of information among operators and
analysts. The tactical grid, alternatively, connects systems among
operational units to provide information across the scene of the
crisis. A good analogy for the tactical grid is a power grid. When
computers of different makes and operating systems are plugged into
electric power outlets, they get a common energy system. By
connecting dissimilar systems across the tactical grid, we are
connecting platform sensors, fire, medical, and law enforcement
units, main computers and electronic subsystems, and so on.
Thinking of the diversity of sensors, communications, and
resource systems as grids overlying the tactical crisis arena
provides a readily understandable way of viewing the myriad of
assets and stakeholders in the crisis communications
infrastructure. Operationally, the impact is that dissimilar
resources and/or units can be connected in the tactical grid,
imposed over the operating area as though they were joining a
regional power grid. This link would occur simultaneously, allowing
the operators of those resources to plug into the space and
communications grids.
The architecture of the tactical command center (TCC) is
intended to serve as the "nerve center" for the incident commander
and his units in the response arena. This means that the TCC is not
only the intelligence center for tactical command, but also the
tactical center for individual units and the multiagency incident
command areas (MACS). The TCC provides the tactical displays,
integrated information management, and accessibility to tactical
communications in support of the response missions. It provides the
requisite tactical connectivity to units, to other area commanders,
and to the command complex of the decisionmakers. Architecturally
the TCC is analogous to the command complex. Both will share a
consistent tactical picture and connect responsible agencies to the
stakeholders, at the tactical level and regional levels.
Conclusions
The essence of crisis management is an effective
information-handling capability. Command must have it; analysis
must have it; tactical operators must have it. Without a true
picture of the emergency event, we are playing 1990s scenarios with
1940s technology. Why do we continue to do this? Possibly it is
because, for many years, a lack of robust communications has
prevented obtaining any understandable "picture" of emergency
incidents. Routinely, it was three and sometimes four days before
the full scope of a disaster became apparent. Responders did what
they could—saved as many lives as possible, shored up as many
levees as appeared to be endangered, housed and fed survivors, and
hoped that the body count would not be too high when the water
receded. Then came the invention of the Minicam, the personal
computer, and cellular communications and their proliferation in
every aspect of our lives.
Now emergency managers realize that it is possible to obtain a
rapid and clearer picture of a disaster. You can watch from space
in real time the rise of the Mississippi or a hurricane bearing
down on the Florida coast. You can compare snow loads in the Sierra
this year with measurable images from last year. You are a visceral
participant in each and every disaster through the convenience of
CNN! And yet, we still have not applied these tools and
capabilities to the actual command and control of emergency
response operations.
It is definitely past wake-up time for emergency managers. If
they can think of fire trucks, helicopters, and ambulances as
"rescue platforms," the electronic equivalent is the communications
platform. It is at this level
Page 372
that systems architecture, programs, and technology converge in
a level of detail that does not require specialized expertise.
It is in this tier that critical paths in operations,
programming, and technologies converge and become most obvious to
managers. This idea that electronic platforms are as essential as
other rescue platforms will allow us to approach design and
installation of the Crisis Communications Management system. At its
simplest, the advent of crisis management is both the recognition
of the requirement and the means to operate in the electromagnetic
spectra and in space against the increased calamities threatening
our traditional economy.
When we think operationally of the Crisis Communications
Management architecture as having a space grid of diverse sensors,
supported by a dynamic, multinode communications grid, we are
conceiving and operating the complex and geographically disparate
electronics of today's emergency response as a system to present
the crisis scene as it really appears, containing all relevant
information in a transparent, easily understood format.
It is the C4I system, designed
to make communications transparent to the user and all sensors
available in common formats, that allows us to conceive of the
space and communications grids and of information movement between
them. The Crisis Communications Management system has been designed
to include both local and wide-area networks that have tied
different systems and hardware together, along with higher
bandwidth communications capabilities and more efficient software.
We have reengineered the work processes for improved information
handling.
During the twentieth century, disaster response has moved out of
the trenches of land-based operations. With the addition of
aircraft to traditional rescue platforms, there was an exponential
increase in the space over which we could travel to perform rescue
operations. But with this increase in the area of operations,
commanders lost the ability to view the catastrophe as a whole.
Now, with our latest technology, we can again provide the incident
commanders with a visual picture of the scene of operations. To
illustrate this, our paper ends with a story quoted from the U.S.
Navy's publication SONATA (USN, 1993), a presentation of the
plan for naval communications through the next century.
Two hundred years ago when Lord Nelson walked
out on the deck of HMSVictory, the tacticalbattle space was
obvious. He could see it and share that perception both withhis
captains and hisenemy. The advent of carrier air power in World War
II changed that. Because acommander can nolonger see the battle
space, perhaps hundreds of miles away from where hestands, it must
be artificiallyreconstructed for him.
Today that reconstruct is accomplished by
messages arriving over differentnetworks, in diverseformats and
with different time delays. Electronic communications, imagery
andradar systems, untilrecently were displayed on separate screens
open to mismanagement. Reality wasreplaced by anartificial view
that was too complex, too redundant, and too slow.
Now we think operationally of the battle space
as having diverse sensors,supported by adynamic, multiconstellation
communications grid. We are (whether we recognizeit or not)
conceivingand operating the complex and geographically disparate
electronics of modernwarfare as a system topresent the battle space
as it really appears—just as it did to Nelson.
The above paragraphs relate to the use of advanced systems
designed for electronic communications support in time of war.
These same technologies are available to civilians. Although a few
of the concepts are still in development, many are "off the shelf"
today. Why aren't we using them to save more of our own people? It
seems worth doing to us. To again quote Adm. Jeremiad, "I urge you
to leap into another dimension of capability by simultaneously
expanding the window of our technological might and our strategic
thought." We say, press on!
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