I can’t say I remember it, but I had just celebrated my fifth birthday.
My parents, like all others, gave me some presents. I’d wager that there was also a Dairy Queen ice cream cake involved at some point.
It had to have been a happy day.
48 hours on from that day, the whole of America was a very somber place.
Four planes had been hijacked by Al-Qaeda, two of them destroying the World Trade Center, one smashing into the Pentagon, and one crash landing into a field in rural Pennsylvania.
Too young to remember the attacks for myself, I had to have been just as confused about the magnitude of the situation as every other child in the country.
Over the years, video of the attacks slowly but surely would be ingrained into my memory, filling in the blanks that eluded my younger mind.Firefighters about to be engulfed by a massive dust cloud. Police running over piles of shattered concrete and tangled, twisted metal beams. Dispatch call audio being played over alternating camera feeds of New York City….
Concern is growing within the public-safety ranks about citizens flying drones over incidents that call for first responders. When incidents involve wildfires, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) usually declares no-fly zones up to 5,000 feet above the fires. I am told some drones can receive no-fly zone alerts and they will not fly into no-fly areas. Unfortunately, more common, less expensive drones do not have that capability.
When a drone is reported in the area of an incident, planes and helicopters (helos) are grounded and cannot assist when needed during wildfires and under certain other circumstances. Because of this, many within the public-safety community are calling for the FAA and potentially the FCC to permit public-safety personnel to disable drones flown by citizens or reporters and to recommend ways to do so. It is reckless for people to continue to fly drones into areas where public safety must be able to monitor the safety of equipment and personnel assisting them from above. There are hefty fines for violating FAA rules but first, someone has to find the person flying the drone and he/she must be arrested. Perhaps some of our military’s methods for disabling drones would be appropriate for public-safety use…
The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the final version of a Cybersecurity Practice Guide for first responders.
The NIST Cybersecurity Practice Guide SP 1800-13, Mobile Application Single Sign-On: Improving Authentication for Public Safety First Responders (PSFRs) was developed in collaboration with industry stakeholders and NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research Lab.
To provide emergency care and support, PSFR personnel rely on mobile platforms to access public safety data. Among the data that PSFRs must access in the performance of their roles is personally identifiable information, law enforcement sensitive information, and protected health information…
By Harry Markley, Senior Law Enforcement Advisor, First Responder Network Authority
Many of us know exactly where we were and what we were doing when the 9/11 attacks happened. I was commander of the SWAT team for the Phoenix Police Department, and the news came early morning in our local time zone. I jumped in my vehicle and drove straight to work, not knowing when, where, or if the next attacks would happen.
Beginning that day and for many weeks that followed, my fellow officers and I worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week to stay in front of the threat. We monitored Arizona’s critical infrastructure, nuclear station, and power supply.
Jeff Johnson says 9/11 shed light on the flaws in communications systems used by the nation’s first responders.
When Jeff Johnson watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center on live television from his office at the Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue in Aloha 20 years ago, he wondered if it was going to be another Pearl Harbor.
“Like so many of us in America, I just got out of my chair and said, ‘That’s no accident. Someone intended to do that,'” the former TVF&R chief said.
One month later, Johnson was called to New York City to help with the process of replacing the 343 firefighters lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It is not uncommon for TVF&R personnel to be called to respond to national disasters like this.
When Johnson arrived, he was struck by how empty the city was. He also remembers how the community treated surrounding fire stations like shrines, with lost crew members’ belongings remaining untouched, just as they were the day they left the station on that tragic day…
Working at a 911 call center is not for the faint of heart. Soon you could be put into a situation that can actually mean life and death. With rigorous education and strong instructions, these dispatch hubs can enable emergency personnel to respond incredibly fast to each incoming call. Here are some of the ins and outs you may not have known about operating the 911 Contact Center.
Appropriate training
The 911 Call Center is different from standard customer service operations. Calls need to be processed quickly, but it takes time to get all the information needed to provide them to emergency personnel. In such cases, the live call may be disconnected or something may happen in the scene where the information is interrupted.With Phone number search, The call operator can attempt to reconnect with the caller. Advanced technology can also use GPS location to identify the origin of a call if it is coming from a mobile phone instead of a landline…
Learn about current efforts to continue to protect the 4.9 GHz Band for public safety as well as recent filings, key decisions impacting these efforts, and how you can support PSSA’s initiative to protect the 4.9 GHz band for public safety.
![“Hello, this is 911, what is your emergency?” (ID) ([Editorial]](https://allthingsecc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/61328af39f372.image_.jpg)
