These Are Some Gaps in CA's Emergency Response System

Better communication during and after an emergency, such as California's wildfires, was a central discussion point at the final 2018 Broadband Council meeting.

While the council meeting is part of a greater effort to build out broadband access across the state, it also revealed weaknesses in the system.

Here are gaps identified at the meeting:

• Deployable communication systems, such as cell service trucks, often interfere with each other.

Permanent emergency response centers, such as state fairgrounds that are used for responder staging, have needed "permanent hard wiring because we are now repositioning temporary services," California Emerging Technology Fund President and CEO Sunne Wright McPeak said at the meeting.

• FirstNet is still being deployed.
• Fiber and data-based fire alert systems, such as ALERTWildfire, only exist in certain parts of the state.
• Tribal lands, which are often located in more rural areas, often do not have connectivity or are restricted to dial-up internet.

"The tribal component, especially in California, we are spread out ... and typically in the non-urban areas, which are the connectors," Matthew Rantanen, director of technology for Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association, told Techwire at a September interview. "A lot of the strategic things that happen during an emergency are run by tribal folks."

Connectivity to everyone is vital to early warnings in emergencies, according to David Espinoza of the Geographic Information Center in Chico.

Amy Tong, CIO of California, said that in the future, the Department of Technology and CalOES will work together to proactively provide CalNet services.