By Bill Schrier, Chair, Washington State Interoperability Executive Committee (SIEC) in collaboration with Crystal Ayco, Scott Honaker, Chris Lombard, Mark McDermott and Karl Wright

On Saturday, March 22, 2014, at 10:37 AM Pacific Time, a hillside near the village of Oso in Snohomish County, Washington, liquefied and sent a wall of mud and debris down into the North Fork Stillaguamish River valley. The landslide covered State Highway 530, closing it, and isolating the community of Darrington from the remainder of the county. A total of 43 residents died and 49 homes were destroyed. The debris field covered over one square mile. In the ensuing six weeks, public safety agencies and volunteers mounted a major rescue and recovery operation which involved, at some points, up to 700 responders. This event is known in Washington as the State Route 530 (SR530) Landslide.

As with any major disaster, wired and wireless communications are critical to response and recovery. After the initial landslide, some communications capabilities immediately fell into place, by both design and luck:

The landslide area is well-covered by the Snohomish Emergency Radio System (SERS), a county-wide 800 MHz trunked radio network used by all in-county first responders.

The Snohomish County Division of Emergency Management (DEM) had previously used grant funds to acquire two communications vehicles. By having two such resources, the County was able to deploy one vehicle to each of two incident command centers: one in isolated Darrington on the east side of the landslide, and another to Arlington on the west side.

800 MHz ICall was used throughout the event as a command network. SERS previously built an extensive ICall simulcast network of five sites which covered the landslide area well. Because ICall was in most 800 MHz-capable radios, the incident commanders decided to use it for command and control. In addition, tactical trunked talk groups were used by field operational units.

Karl Wright, a SERS radio technician, lives in Darrington, and was able to respond and support the incident command post in that community. He was constantly on duty to handle communications training and issues during the event. For example, he reprogrammed responders radios including cache radios shipped in from outside the county.

A system-key-sharing agreement exists between Snohomish, King (Seattle) and Pierce (Tacoma) counties and the Port of Seattle. This agreement allowed Karl Wright and other technicians to rapidly reprogram radios as they were shipped to SR530 landslide incident.

The Alaska Shield Exercise was scheduled to start on March 27, 2014, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Alaska earthquake. Luckily, the area’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team, the type III Northwest Washington Incident Management Team (NWIMT) and the FEMA Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) Team based in FEMA Region 10 were already preparing to deploy for this exercise. Once authorized, they quickly redirected their mobilization to the SR530 landslide.

The MERS team is a major disaster resource. The MERS team deployed to incident command posts on both sides of the landslide and provided significant capabilities, for example, several daily video conferences between incident commanders on each side of the county.

While there were many success, there were, invariably, some communications problems that occurred during the response and recovery efforts. These problems were largely overcome by the training and diligence of the communications leaders responding to the event. The following list highlights lessons learned from the incident to be utilized by SWICs Nationwide:

All regional radios should be programmed with an incident operations zone. Snohomish, King, and Pierce Counties, and the Port of Seattle should all need a zone for major incident operations that is programmed on each of the 20,000+ radios in the region. If all radios in the region have each of the incident operations zones programed, the need for reprogramming during future incidents will be minimal.

A comprehensive list of Communications Leaders (COML) and Technicians is needed. The first meeting of all the COMLs on site did not occur until Sunday, March 30, eight days after the landslide. These lists are available in various online locations, but due to lack of funding at the State level, are not widely available to State responders.

Mobilization of the necessary teams took time. The USAR team, for example, was activated on Monday evening, almost 60 hours after the landslide. The USAR team, a federal asset, was initially mobilized as a Pierce County asset, then, as a State asset. The delay in proper mobilization was due to quirks in State law which only allowed mobilization of such assets during wildfires, not during other disasters. While this is not, technically, a communications issue, it should be addressed through revisions to Washington State Law and its emergency management planning.

Radio caches are necessary during disaster response. The Seattle Urban Area has, through Urban Area Security Initiatives grants, funded small caches of radios (about 50, 800 MHz trunked plus Ultra- and Very-High Frequency caches) which were airlifted to Darrington early in the event and distributed to the Skagit County and other responders. Other jurisdictions contributed spare radios, as did Motorola, but more extensive caches are required.

Communications plans must include volunteer management. Volunteer workers were critical to the SR530 response. The Oso-Darrington area is logging country, composed of close-knit families and neighbors who actively participated in the recovery operation following the landslide. They brought logging equipment which was used to remove the logs and debris clogging the area. While the responder community appreciated the efforts of the volunteers, team members were required to monitor the volunteers to ensure their safety and coordinate radio communications.

Training and exercises are invaluable mechanisms. Many of issues listed above can be mitigated through proper training. Incident management teams should practice taking over command of an incident, with seamless communications transition. Responders and others technicians should be trained on the use of their radios. There is no substitute for all responders knowing each other and learning to work together.

The loss of life and damage to property from the SR530 landslide was monumental. The community and responders worked tirelessly to rescue survivors and recover those who perished. The State of Washington will undoubtedly face future disasters, potentially including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and lahars. With diligence and practice, the State’s communications capabilities will be ready. A list of all the IMT’s in the State is in the Fire Mobilization Plan.