Communications in Africa

"Communications is very important in every facet of life," Jaskulski said, "but especially when you displace a large group of people and move them to a foreign land. They have to be able to communicate at the rescue site, and back and forth to the U.S. In Africa, for communications, we were 100% self-contained. Phone usage, faxing, radio frequencies, channels, dispatch - we had to be able to manage it all."

When Jaskulski and VA-TF1 communications specialists, Gary Morin and Frank Stoda, reached the blast-damaged U.S. Embassy they immediately began the arduous task of creating a communications network. "The first thing we did was go out and survey the area," Jaskulski recounted, "evaluating safety issues, identifying possible areas for rescue, and seeing what resources, if any, were available on scene."

In Africa there were no resources for the communications team to draw upon. "No power. No hardline telephones," Jaskulski said. "Our cell phones would not work, since the Kenyans use a whole different system. As far as telephone communications was concerned, we used a satellite terminal on the Inmarsat system. It's about the size of a laptop computer. When you flip the lid up, you've got a built-in antenna, and a map that shows the four satellites that are around the world. You program which satellite you want to use, and get your connection. Once we hit the ground, we were talking back to our fire department within four minutes. This is the best invention I've ever seen."

According to Jaskulski, technological advances have cost-effectively improved and aided response capability. "The same model satellite telephone that we bought five years ago cost about $40,000, weighed about 50-pounds, and was the size of a large chair. The thing works well and we still have it in our cache. But we just purchased the same model phone about 10-months ago, paid about $3,500, and it's the size of a laptop computer. It fits in my backpack."

Satellite telephones were used to "call in reports to OFDA, talk to our fire chief, and do teleconferences with our families back home", Jaskulski explained. Each task force member was allowed one personal phone call only, due to the high cost. "SAT phones are a little expensive, about $5.00-6.00 per minute," Jaskulski said. "But in an emergency, they're what you need to use."

In addition to rigging communications, task force members established their Base Of Operations (BOO), which included a medical area, communications dispatch center, command staff area, staging area, and food and personal hygiene area, in the front yard of the U.S. Embassy. " Normally we prefer to have the BOO about a mile away," Jaskulski said, "but for security reasons, we set up close to the blast site."

Each task force in the U.S. has assigned radio frequencies. VA-TF1 used the "same ones that are assigned to us back in the States," Jaskulski explained. "We set up a portable repeater, the Motorola GR300 UHF, on the roof of the U.S. Embassy. We have one repeated frequency to give us distance, and two direct frequencies to communicate with the work site rubble pile and to talk directly back to the BOO." For team safety and accountability, Jaskulski noted that every member of the task force was assigned a radio. "If we had to send someone out to get supplies somewhere in the city, we would maintain continuous contact by radio."

To ensure a "solid power supply to protect all the electrical systems," Jaskulski used a UPS system on all electrical communications equipment. "There are a lot of things that you might take for granted at home that you need to think of in a place like Africa," Jaskulski said. "When you put your repeaters up, they have got to have a constant electrical supply, they have got to be grounded, and they have got to be weather protected, so we built little shelters for them."

To file reports stateside, Jaskulski documented the event with digital pictures, which were transmitted back to the States." Much of this information was featured online in a special web site, updated daily with reports and photos from Nairobi. "You can't beat the technology," he enthused.

To facilitate inter-agency communications, Jaskulski provided members of the Israeli and French search and rescue teams that were working jointly with VA-TF1 members on the Ufundi Building with radios. "It surprised me that the other organizations, like the Israeli military rescue team, didn't have radios to communicate with one another or back to their base of operations," he said. "We also supplied OFDA with radios so that we could all communicate. We carried an extra fifteen radios just for this purpose."

On-going maintenance, drilling, and teamwork contributed to the success of the mission, according to Jaskulski. "The missions are the 'easy' part, as long as you have everything prepared in advance. When we returned to the U.S., all we wanted to do was take a shower and sleep. Our fourth communications team member, Brian Cloyd, took the lead on cleaning all of the equipment, checking it for damage, and storing it safely, so that the communications cache was ready for the next deployment."

Despite the fact that all of the equipment functioned well, Jaskulski is concerned about having a reliable back-up system during international missions. "As a result of our experience in Africa, we're taking our backup system one step further," he said. "Everything worked well, but if something had not worked, it could have been a problem. You not only need a backup system, but a backup for the backup system."

The deployment of US&R Task Force teams by FEMA and USAID/OFDA is a dynamic process that is in a constant state of review. One area of ongoing debate is how many people are needed and in what capacity they should serve. "Communications is essential," Jaskulski said. "We took one extra communications specialist with us to Africa, which was really helpful. For any future international deployments, we hope to take three communications specialists, including technology specialists."