now to a local ten investigation one of
the shocking discoveries we made
following the parkland massacre was the
chaos and confusion among first
responders the county's communication
system outdated and overwhelmed
investigative reporter Janeane Stanwood
finds out why it's taking so long to fix
the failures
one year later September 2015 a
consultant group learns the Broward
County radio system had numerous recent
failures is aging and at risk January
2017 a shooting at the airport in Fort
Lauderdale and chaos on the radio
February 14th 2018 one of the worst
school shootings in history for some
first responders yet again a failure to
connect Broward County's radio system
first installed in 1992 was overwhelmed
by the surge of police and firefighters
at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high making
things more confusing not every city is
even part of the regional system
including Coral Springs which played a
big part in the response the day of the
massacre the two systems could not patch
we need to get these radios past BSO
parents of victims frustrated and
outraged it's unacceptable I'm gonna
simply say my daughter didn't need to
die the radio system in Broward County
did not Traci Jackson is the new
director of regional emergency services
and communications of Broward County
he's a former Miami firefighter and
logistics expert
he says the radios actually did what
they were supposed to do when they're
inundated it went into a self-protective
mode it's a thing called throttling when
a system does that people trying to
access the system will hear a bong or
honk
a sound as says the system is busy the
problem is if you're out there and
you're pressing your button and you
don't hear anything you would press it
again which puts you at the back of the
line again it took I think 90 minutes
for the number of requests to come down
to a normal level Jackson says every
system has its limitations one
high-profile example congested radio
traffic during the Las Vegas massacre
delays are dangerous here and every day
that we're delayed in putting in this
new system there's an issue commissioner
Michael you dean says change is coming
to Broward County and so is a brand-new
80 million dollar system parts are
coming in towers are being built radios
are being ordered the county's plan is
to add six new communications towers to
the existing ten with overlapping
coverage better reception and redundancy
in case a tower goes down one tower
location in Hollywood is still up in the
air but the new system isn't expected to
be in place until the end of this year
possibly 2020 four years after the
county knew there were problems why is
it taking so long
I guess when you deal with a lot of
municipalities when you deal with the
procurement of this size there's been
bid protests there's been a lot of
bureaucratic issues but to be clear if
something happened in parkland again if
there was a crush of police officers and
first responders trying to use the
radios would there be the same problems
that there were a year ago we've sent
out different training to these officers
I don't think the same thing would
happen in terms of the first responders
and here's why one is I think is
increase awareness of how the system
actually functions two is there's been a
lot of collaboration between parkland
and Coral Springs and a Regional
dispatch center isn't talking about how
they manage traffic on that scene in the
meantime Coral Springs fire is working
on their own upgrade to better
coordinate with BSO non public safety
users like bus drivers are being told to
move off the regional system to free up
space on
karst responders are being trained to
talk less on the radios because Jackson
and you Dean say even an upgraded system
can still be overwhelmed that it's taken
way too long for this to be done and we
have to make sure that this is our
number one priority to get this done
Janine Stanwood local 10 News you dean
confirms that 1400 school buses will
come off the radio system over the
summer the Broward Sheriff's Office
disputes the problems had to do with
training a spokesperson tells local 10
it was a capacity issue you can read
BSO's entire statement on our website at
local 10 calm well