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GCN Home > 09/11/06 issue

FDNY Capt. Anthony Catalanotto | Better radio systems protect firefighters

Catalanotto is assigned to the New York Fire Department's Bureau of Operations

By Mary Mosquera, GCN Staff

New York firefighters better protect their city because the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, ignited a sense of urgency to strengthen their communications and better coordinate among firefighters, police and emergency management.

The attacks took a heavy toll on the Fire Department of New York City—343 firefighters died in the collapse of the 110-floor Twin Towers.

Since then, the FDNY has modernized its communications, put radios in the hands of every working firefighter and added radio frequencies so city response agencies can talk with each other at the site of an emergency, said Anthony Catalanotto, captain in New York Fire Department’s Bureau of Operations.

On the morning of 9-11, Catalanotto, then a lieutenant assigned to a firehouse in the Bronx, was home off duty. After firefighters responded to the call to their firehouse, “we commandeered a city bus—the people had no idea what was going on. We took the bus with a lot of firemen and officers from the northern part of the Bronx, and we responded down to lower Manhattan,” he said.

By that time, both of the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed, and there was a lot of chaos.

“We were in the smoke all day long. You couldn’t even tell what time of day it was. We didn’t leave that side of the site until midnight,” he said.

Many of the firefighters returned to the firehouse after midnight only to be back on duty at 9 a.m. for their usual 24 hours on and 24 off.

“We still had to maintain our own company. We couldn’t skip a beat,” he said.

Firefighters rely on their handi-talkies, as they call their radios, for help when they are trapped in a burning building, lost in dense smoke, or just to communicate with commanders.

In 2001, firefighters going out on a truck had three or four radios but often had six people working, leaving two or three without any capability to speak over the radio.

More news on related topics: Communications / Networks, Mobile & Wireless, Homeland Security, Management, IT Management, State & Local



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