During an otherwise sleepy August summer, the East Coast was jolted by a confluence of unlikely events: a historic earthquake and a hurricane within days of each other.

The fact that both events occurred near the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 serves as a reminder about how much progress this nation has made when it comes to preparing for disasters, both natural and man-made.

However, the nation’s cell phone network is still vulnerable to major disruptions – a fact demonstrated in stark reality in the hours succeeding last week’s earthquake, when millions of people from North Carolina to New York were unable to make calls.

Unfortunately – but perhaps surprising to some – such outages have an impact on the ability of emergency responders to communicate with each other during major events.

LightSquared is part of the solution, as public safety agencies have come increasingly to rely on our satellite devices and service during emergencies since 9/11.

With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast, LightSquared did its part to assist emergency responders in preparing and responding to the event, by ensuring that various agencies can communicate with each other as they respond to the needs of public.

Last Thursday, LightSquared’s Emergency Rapid Response Communications Team (ERRT) deployed, at the request of several state emergency management agencies, to locations in Virginia, Delaware and Maryland. The team provides on-call mobile satellite communications services, personnel and equipment for emergency support to first responders and public safety agencies. The teams also assist responders in employing use of our G2 satellite phones, which feature our critical Push-to-Talk (PTT) service. PTT allows groups of responders from different agencies to communicate simultaneously. Our team also assists in the creation of “talk groups” of public safety workers through our Satellite Mutual Aid Radio Talkgroup” (SMART) service.

And last Friday, we collaborated with Inmarsat to jointly coordinate our spectrum to ensure there is sufficient satellite capacity for our respective emergency management and first responder customers as they prepare – and respond to – Hurricane Irene.

LightSquared has been offering mobile satellite services for more than 20 years, having launched our two MSAT satellites in 1995 and 1996. Last November, we launched our next-generation satellite, SkyTerra 1, which has the world’s largest reflector (22 meters), enabling satellite services on handheld devices similar in size and shape to traditional cell phones.

Earlier this month, we announced that we had completed the successful transition of 50,000 public safety and enterprise customers from the MSAT satellites to SkyTerra 1.

This past week is not the first time LightSquared has responded to natural disasters. We have assisted emergency responders on Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, the earthquake in Haiti, the ice storm in Kentucky and this year’s tornado in Joplin, Mo., among other disasters.

In addition to providing essential communications services to public safety organizations, our services serve crucial functions in the private sector, including maritime, oil and gas, utilities, news and entertainment, telecom and other industries.

Not well known among the general public is that our overall satellite business service supports more than 300,000 customers.

LightSquared awaits a decision by the FCC that would clear our launch of the nation’s first wholesale-only integrated 4G-LTE wireless broadband and satellite network.

From a practical standpoint, what does this mean for consumers?

It means for the first time, millions of underserved people in rural America will be able to access wireless broadband service. It means a person driving through Yellowstone Park or a barren stretch of desert in Arizona will be still be able to talk on their cell phone. It means more competition for a marketplace that has come to be increasingly dominated by two key players. It means lower prices for consumers.

LightSquared has long been a game-changer for public safety officials. It will soon be a game-changer for the broader consumer market as well.

The numbers are staggering – 1,400 wildfires burning around the state. Over 70 homes destroyed and 7,800 under threat. President Bush has declared the fires a federal emergency and released $50 million in federal aid, announced by FEMA administrator David Paulison – surely a sign that the feds are fully engaged in the fire aid effort, right?

Not so fast. There is a difference between an “emergency,” which frees up something like the $50 million in firefighting funds, and a “federal disaster” declaration, which frees up the full range of FEMA assistance to fire victims, including relocation shelters and financial assistance.

According to the Monterey Herald the federal government has refused to declare the California fires a disaster:

But assistance from FEMA for fire victims has not been approved because the fires have not been declared a federal disaster.

Paulison said a preliminary damage evaluation will be done to determine if more declarations are needed.

Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, said he was told it does not appear California’s wildfires qualify as a federal disaster because the level of destruction has not been great enough.

It’s conservative government in action – the stingy nature of FEMA assistance that was revealed to the world during Hurricane Katrina continues to dominate the Bush Administration’s approach to disaster relief. As a Daily Kos diarist has explained FEMA is screwing around with Midwest flood disaster relief and of course, FEMA’s initial reaction to last fall’s fires here in California was to host a news conference where its employees posed as actual reporters and lobbed softball questions at FEMA administrators.

California’s fire season is going to be long and difficult. As the Big Sur and Goleta fires show, a rapid response by firefighters is necessary to saving homes and lives. Unfortunately a combination of drought and a lack of firefighting resources is intensifying the fires.

Understaffing is one of the main issues facing firefighters, as the Firefighter Blog makes clear:

“Fire has jumped a southern containment lines and crews are attempting to hold a secondary dozer line with limited resources. Structures, heavy fuel loads due to sudden oak death, . Active fire behavior on the southern end and north of Pfeiffer State Park is becoming a challenge to containment actions. East Zone: Numerous structures and improvements located in the proximity to Carmel Valley Road and Tassajara Road areas. Limited access. Extremely steep and rugged terrain with continuous heavy fuel loading. HEBM is needed for military assets.”

It seems improbable this fire could move that far north but Commander Deitrech has a tired army under his watch. Under “normal” conditions he would already have the necessary resources to mount a proper attack. Like all the other fire commanders statewide he is simply understaffed.

If this is a problem now, one shudders to think of what will happen this fall when the Santa Ana winds kick up across a bone-dry Southern California. FEMA’s stinginess and the lack of adequate firefighting resources are both the product of conservative opposition to government – the only body in our society that’s capable of managing a response to disasters of this magnitude.

By Dave Johnson, Speak Out California

Our ongoing Speak Out California series on the California budget is interrupted by an “emergency.”  With California state budget deficit projections rising from $10 billion to $14 billion the Governor plans to declare a budget “emergency,” saying he might propose “slashing” the state’s budget by 10% “across the board.”

But doesn’t a budget involve spending and revenues?  Why is the Governor tying one hand behind our backs?  Why is the Governor only proposing that the people who are in a position to really need our government’s help be the ones who must sacrifice in this “emergency?”

I’ll begin with some background for those readers who don’t spend their days scouring California budget news.  According to Saturday’s San Jose Mercury News story, Fiscal emergency for California,

Facing a projected $14 billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday said he will declare a fiscal emergency, which will allow the governor and lawmakers to cut spending more quickly and also sets the stage for slashing state services and programs – perhaps by as much as 10 percent.

Who will be most affected by these cuts? The rich? The powerful?  What do you think the odds of that are?  According to the San Jose Mercury News story,

Much of California’s general fund budget, which totals $102 billion for the 2007-08 fiscal year that began July 1, is designated for education, transportation and other uses. Therefore, cuts often fall disproportionately on social services and the poor, elderly and disabled residents who rely on them.

But in an “emergency” why would the Governor make a pre-emptive announcement that takes half of the state’s budget options off the table?  A budget consists of spending and revenues.  Yet the Governor proposes to solve the problem entirely by cutting government services like education, social services and law enforcement, and is not even discussing raising taxes.  Shouldn’t half of the solutions toolkit warrant half of the discussion?

This one-sided debate on budget priorities is gaining attention.  A Dec. 9 Los Angeles Times op-ed, Why won’t The Times talk tax hikes?, by Robert Cruickshank, a political science teacher, addressed this unbalanced approach, writing, “There are ways for the governor to balance the budget without cutting spending.”  Questioning a one-sided approach to solving budget problems, he continued,

Here’s the problem. The politics of the budget crisis are in large part shaped by media coverage. When the state’s largest and most influential paper focuses on spending — while largely ignoring the revenue side — in budget articles, it implies that the solution to the budget crisis is slashing spending rather than raising taxes. That’s not balanced journalism.

Citing several pieces that discussed cutting spending but not raising taxes, Cruickshank wrote,

To its credit, The Times, in a Nov. 9 editorial titled “Red-ink realism,” correctly noted that Schwarzenegger is partly to blame for the budget mess by lowering the vehicle-license fee. But rather than call for tax increases — or even just a study of possible new sources of revenue — to pay for locked-in or new spending, the editorial offered up the bromide that California needs bold, courageous leadership to solve the budget problem.

This debate is not just happening in California.  A recent New York Times op-ed by Robert Frank, Reshaping the Debate on Raising Taxes, addressed how a reluctance to discuss taxes affects the country.  Frank wrote,

POWERFUL anti-tax rhetoric has made legislators at every level of government afraid to talk publicly about a need to raise taxes. The constituents of the few who dare speak are typically bombarded with attack ads that go something like this: “It’s your money, but your esteemed senator thinks the bureaucrats in Washington know how to spend it more wisely than you do.”

Because of our inability to talk sensibly about taxes, the United States has been sliding toward second-class status in the world economy. …

And California is well along the path to second-class status as well.  All we need to do is visit our schools or drive on our roads to see what the drumbeat of anti-tax, budget-cutting propaganda brings us.  

It is tricks like declaring an “emergency” while taking half of the possible solution off the table, while at the same time our newspapers and other information sources refuse to inform the public of all of the ways that budget problems can be addressed, that got us where they are.  This is not a sustainable path.  The day must come when the budget just breaks down: when there is nothing left to cut, the interest paid on all the bonds catches up to us, and we wake up to see that our California Dream was sold off to the lowest bidder.  It is better that we wake up now and reclaim the dream, asking those who have benefited most from the state we built to contribute their share.

Click to continue.

Oh, my! So are we really in a state of emergency? SCAG says so. Why are we in a state of emergency? Here’s what The OC Register says:

Air pollution accounts for more than 5,400 premature deaths in the region annually, according to the Southern California Association of Governments. On Thursday, the group’s 71-member board voted to urge the emergency declarations as a way of tightening federal and state laws that regulate cars, trucks, ships and trains.

Those sources account for much of Southern California’s smog.

“When we have a hurricane or earthquake, they declare a state of emergency,” said Hasan Ikhrata, SCAG director of planning and policy. “These numbers are out of this world so this is significant enough that they should do the same thing.”

SCAG includes local lawmakers from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial counties.

So the federal government should declare a state of emergency in Southern California because of our pollution? Huh? Follow me after the flip for more on why regional pollution really is raising eyebrows (and asthma levels)…

So why are we in such danger? Take a look at the air quality in my neighborhood in Orange County. We have dangerously high ozone levels. We have dangerously high particle pollution levels. Basically, our air is quite dirty. However, the problem isn’t just in my neighborhood in Orange County. The entire Southern California region has the worst air quality in the nation.

OK, so you don’t believe me? Check this out, and then read this: (From Daily Breeze)

Southern California’s long-maligned air quality keeps getting better, but Los Angeles-area residents are still breathing the most polluted air in the nation, according to a report being released today.

The annual State of the Air report by the American Lung Association found that from 2003 to 2005 the L.A. metropolitan area continued to have the highest levels of ozone and particulate pollution. But over the period residents in the study region, which also included Riverside, suffered from dangerously high pollution levels for fewer days of the year.

“We have a long way to go,” said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, assistant vice president of government relations for the association’s California division. “We have daunting challenges in moving away from fossil fuels, in moving away from petroleum in our state.

“But we have been incredibly aggressive and innovative in improving our emissions.”

Despite such claims, California remains plagued by air pollution. Twenty-six counties got an “F” in air quality — including all of Southern California. Only Salinas made the clean-cities list.

OK, so the quality of our air is getting better… But it’s still horribly awful. So what can we do about it? What can we do that hasn’t already been done to lower air pollution levels in Southern California?

How about taking more cars off the street? How about encouraging more use of mass transit? How about making mass transit more accessible and easier to use in our area? How about building communities where it’s easier to walk to places where we need to go? How about building a more sustainable society? There are many individual actions that we can take, and many actions that we can encourage our local governments to take.

And while we’re at it, shouldn’t the federal government also take some action? The US Environmental Protection Agency is considering changing national air quality standards for ozone solution. Let’s make sure that the EPA strengthens these standards.

After all, we can’t afford to wait as this dirty conundrum quickly becomes a disastrous emergency.