complimentary mention. Some of the documents that were also reviewed include: • California Hospital Bioterrorism

LARTCS is and will be the communication system for public safety agencies, within the County of Los Angeles, for the next decade. It is wholly adequate to serve its purpose, except in the case of a widespread major disaster. No communication system can withstand a natural or manmade catastrophe.

LA-RICS is now in the phase of system-engineering and specification development. It is scheduled to be purchased and developed over the next decade. An implementation schedule is presented in the referenced brochure on LA-RICS.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department is the backbone organization for the operation of LARTCS. Sheriff personnel are also heavily involved in the development of LA-RICS. The present Civil Grand Jury has found the personnel involved in both of these systems to be both competent and cooperative. We say this here to reassure the public that knowledgeable people are guiding these developments. (Copies of LARTCS and LA-RICS brochures will appear at the conclusion of the last part of this report). 282 2007-2008 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury Final Report EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: THE COMMUNITY-BASED PART 2007-2008 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury Investigative Committee John Gleiter, Chair Octavio “Toby” Chavez Richard Niederberg Dolores Rillos Arnie L. Spears 283 2007-2008 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury Final Report 284 2007-2008 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury Final Report EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS: THE COMMUNITY-BASED PART OVERVIEW While fire suppression and law enforcement personnel are the most visible users of handheld radios, in times of civic unrest and natural or manmade disasters, the citizens of the area affected, who are the true first responders, constitute an important part of the communication system through their use of their own handheld radios. The (city of) Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) is a lead agency in the integration of citizen volunteers into the disaster relief system, primarily through its development of the Citizens Emergency Response Team (CERT) training program, including quarterly hands-on exercises, monthly battalion meetings, Division training, classes narrowly tailored to specific subject matters, and working at public events to enhance certain skills that can best be learned in a real-world environment, particularly the efficient use of handheld radios in high-traffic situations. The Los Angeles Fire Department also supports and regulates the Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS), which is a network of hundreds of licensed amateur radio (Ham) operators. Many CERT members are also licensed amateur radio operators who can be deployed to wherever needed by the Los Angeles Fire Department without being accompanied by an ACS member. The frequency that CERT and ACS often tune to, before being directed to another frequency being utilized for a specific location or a specific team at a particular emergency, is 147.300MHz. The reallocation of frequency bandwidth has significantly affected the utilization of handheld radios by police, fire, sheriff, and other professional personnel, but it has also affected the utilization of handheld radios by citizens. The use of Citizen Band radio frequencies, and the handheld radios designed to utilize these frequencies, has rapidly declined after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) changed the rules when the number of channels was increased from 23 to 40, but the permitted transmit power was decreased. Channel 9 (27.065 MHz) was/is the emergency contact frequency. Subsequently, the FCC established two new sequential series of frequencies with lower-numbered, lower-power frequencies that can be used by persons without FCC licenses entitled Family Radio Service (FRS), and higher-numbered, higher- powered frequencies reserved for those persons holding General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) licenses. In this area, Channel 11 (467.6375 MHz) is routinely used for CERT exercises. 285 2007-2008 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury Final Report Also available for citizen use are Marine Radios which were designed for ship-to- ship and ship-to-shore communications. Even though their use land-to-land is generally prohibited by the FCC rules, in the case of a true emergency, a radio on a boat in a stranded or injured person’s driveway could be their only way to seek assistance. Marine Channel 16 (156.800 MHz) is monitored by persons listening for distress calls. Likewise, a handheld Air Band Radio, whose use is normally prohibited when not in conjunction with the operation of an aircraft air-to-air or air-to-aircraft control personnel, could be used briefly in case of an emergency when no other method of communication was available. Frequency 121.5 MHz is monitored by persons listening for distress calls. Business Band radios are of limited assistance in case of an emergency; as they operate on private or semi-private channels that are not likely to be monitored by emergency personnel. Cellular phones will be of little use in case of any widespread emergency, both because the system will become overloaded quickly and because of the probability of damage to either the cell towers or the possibility that the repeaters and the central telephone office could lose power following the depletion of the back-up battery systems or the fuel required to run the back-up generators continuously for any significant period of time. In contrast, although most recently manufactured handheld amateur radios can use repeaters in their Duplex mode (transmitting on one frequency and receiving on another frequency, often using a repeater), they also can communicate handheld–to- handheld in their Simplex mode (transmitting and receiving sequentially on the same frequency). The public can also purchase handheld scanners (radios that only receive broadcasts, but can do so on a large number of frequencies) at local consumer electronics stores, including some advanced models which can store 5,000 or more channels programmed into memory, and have the ability to receive broadcasts by systems which employ digital trunking. Scanners allow citizens to monitor broadcasts by all of the above radio types, including evacuation orders for emergency personnel or equipment in their area, if the citizen has, or can obtain, the frequencies being utilized by their local agencies. (A copy of the Los Angeles City Fire Department Disaster Preparedness Training brochure follows this report). 286 tropeR laniF yruJ dnarG liviC ytnuoC selegnA soL 8002-7002 782 tropeR laniF yruJ dnarG liviC ytnuoC selegnA soL 8002-7002 882 2007-2008 Los Angeles County Civil Grand Jury Final Report 289 tropeR laniF yruJ dnarG liviC ytnuoC selegnA soL 8002-7002 092