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08/06/2007

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Provides Early Test of Wi-Fi Network

In recent weeks, a City of Minneapolis team has been engaged in a planning effort focused on Port security along the Mississippi River's path through the heart of the city. One of the key questions they are exploring? The impact a bridge collapse would have on the city and the region. The intricate webs of potential cascading effects were hard to imagine. Now, our current reality provides far too much anguishing detail about actual scenarios the team hoped only to understand on paper at a theoretical level.

On Wednesday evening, August 1, 2007, during rush hour, the sudden collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge dropped scores of occupied vehicles into the river gorge below. Lives were lost. Significant injuries were sustained. Families were changed forever. A major traffic artery was severed, and calls for help went out. The City of Minneapolis instantly responded, and emergency personnel did what they do best — rescued those in danger, searched for survivors, mitigated hazardous conditions, and put a safety net in place around the incident.

Immediately following the collapse, city emergency and community communications centers were flooded with incoming alerts from witnesses to the tragedy. The call takers, dispatchers and systems worked flawlessly. In the 90 minutes following the event, the city's 911 Emergency Communications Center handled more than 450 calls. Its 311 Nonemergency Communications Center logged over 600 contacts. Cellular carrier systems in the region were overloaded within 30 minutes.

I became aware of the event while at a board meeting for a local arts organization and began to receive a steady series of calls and text messages from family members, friends, and city personnel. Once I had located my wife and four children, who were all in different locations away from the bridge incident location, I went to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) beneath City Hall.

Ops Center Focused and on Task

On an average day in Minneapolis, good parts of our population are stereotypically stoic and find it comforting to deal with stressful situations by communicating in the third person. This indirect method of skirting conflict serves to protect both the offending and the offended party, but leaves much unresolved. Not the case this night. Everyone present spoke in tones that were simultaneously intense and absolutely calm. Communication was clear. There were no theatrics, no political overtones, no wasted moments. The center was fully operational, and the city's leadership team was in place within minutes. Mayor R.T. Rybak, city council president Barbara Johnson, city council members, department heads and key emergency and nonemergency support personnel stepped into their well-rehearsed EOC roles. The response was well organized, purposeful and effective. Intensive training following 9/11 was paying off.

Critical immediate priorities and longer-range objectives were woven into a seamless plan of action. Boats were ordered into the water. Lights and generators were dispatched to the scene. Additional rescue divers were called in. The FAA was asked to declare a no-fly zone. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers was asked to steam a river crane northward. The Minnesota Twins were asked to continue the game while traffic routing and crowd-control solutions were put into place. And media outlets were informed of the time and location of the first press event, in the space of one singular and particularly concentrated moment. This was a high-performance team at work.

Wi-Fi Put to Work

One of the first text messages I had received on Wednesday evening was from Joe Caldwell at USI Wireless, the city's private-sector partner responsible for building, owning and managing the citywide wireless-broadband network now under construction. When Joe realized the cellular networks were jammed, he immediately opened the wireless network to all users. The network is approximately 20 percent complete, and fortunately the coverage area includes both the central business district and surrounding neighborhoods. USI Wireless had attracted almost 1,000 customers to date in the relatively small area where it is now available. Wednesday evening more than 6,000 users took advantage of the open access. The network served an important public service that night.

As the event unfolded, a number of immediate potential uses of the wireless network became apparent. They included opening an alternate path to electronic communication and information for city personnel; extending the Wi-Fi network infrastructure to fully blanket the scene of the bridge collapse for emergency personnel on-site connectivity; implementing live multiple perspective camera coverage of the scene for EOC and Command Post uses; and providing community links to City of Minneapolis resources, Hospital Emergency Coordination Units, State of Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT) traffic routing information, Red Cross Blood Bank collection points, and local and national news outlets. On a longer-term basis, it could be used to enable ongoing monitoring and coordination of the rebuilding effort.

USI Wireless's and other technology and support resources mirrored the city's response. Kurt Lange, USIW's executive in charge of network construction and operations had already directed crews to begin loading trucks with additional radios and installation equipment. His team only needed to know what the city wanted them to do first. The trucks were dispatched to the scene, and USI Wireless crews began to design and plan the desired incident area network extension, from the vantage point of a bridge parallel and adjacent to the Interstate 35W bridge, which was fully intact but had been temporarily closed to traffic. It was comforting to know this bridge shared the same warning label applied to its fallen neighbor. The only good news is that it was being inspected once again by MNDOT engineers, as we stood watching on the bridge deck. The USI Wireless team completed construction of the extended network segment needed to provide the desired coverage and high capacity within 16 hours of the initial collapse.

The field conditions were far from ideal, but the installation teams worked through each obstacle with creativity and a sense of urgency. The strangest incident occurred on Thursday afternoon. The sun was intense and the air was still. The only breeze we enjoyed was delivered by the occasional USAF helicopter scanning the scene or ferrying high-ranking officials. A very professional and pleasant EMT was checking on the health and wellness of everyone on the bridge, insuring we had adequate water and food. We were grateful for his consideration. It was shocking to us, therefore, when he was arrested soon after for impersonating an emergency worker. The arresting Officer noted that he recognized him as the same man who had appeared at the scene the previous evening as a Minnesota National Guard soldier. Apparently, if you are going to successfully impersonate an officer, you need to be more consistent in your approach. Security procedures were immediately tightened up.

Multiple Agencies, Cameras Use Network

While the network expansion was being completed, City Business Information Services Department and USI Wireless personnel configured network access for City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, State of Minnesota and federal agency use. I had no idea we have so many federal agencies. The City of Minneapolis Mobile Unified Command Center, which was located on the river bank and on a barge serving as a Mississippi River hub for divers and city, county, state and federal emergency personnel, was the first to log on.

Multiple high-quality pan tilt zoom cameras were quickly located, and preparations for video installation and programming continued throughout the day on Thursday. City of Minneapolis and USI Wireless received full cooperation and support from a huge list of participants. Stuart DeVaan, of Implex.net and Mike Moon of MoonCom lent cameras until the overnight arrival of video equipment, donated by Panasonic, arrived via counter-to-counter air. Generators were made available and fueled. Permission was immediately granted for use of city, state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assets needed for device mounting.

The customary best practices associated with coordinating the use of such assets is a lengthy and complex process. These processes are important and are designed to ensure the long-term integrity of in-place infrastructure such as lighting systems and electrical grids. Month-long processes were reduced to two-minute conversations. People were smiling a lot when they were solving problems together. The only times smiles seemed to disappear were when they looked over at the bridge that wasn't in one piece any longer. Gaining trust among a large number of players with diverse interests takes time. During the early hours of this disaster, it was very clear that the time and effort spent during the past year building those relationships became an essential building block enabling a rapid response to the issues at hand.

The short answer to literally every request was, "Yes, would yesterday be soon enough?" We needed power at the riverbank from the closest point. The University of Minnesota had three electricians and pipefitters on site within 20 minutes with tools in hand to extend electrical service from one of their buildings to the banks of the Mississippi River. The City Coordinator's Office, Police Department, Fire Department, Business Information Services, Public Works and numerous other personnel provided assets, vehicles, materials and people to assist around the clock in completing the incident network. Minneapolis Police Department and GIS technology specialists made all on-site agencies aware of the availability of the network and began to transfer electronic maps and logistical information to the field the moment the network was live.

The first incident cameras covering the Interstate 35W bridge were brought online Thursday with an additional perspective added on Friday. The final temporary camera was then replaced with a permanent unit on Saturday afternoon. These cameras are being used to monitor, coordinate and streamline rescue and salvage efforts. While the critical nature of the response required installation teams to initially take full advantage of short term solutions such as generator power and tripod mounted devices, the design goal has been to move toward permanent installation methods as quickly as possible. Permanent power is now being run to all radio and camera devices so generator power can be eliminated. Video server technology was installed in the Data Center and is now being brought online in tandem with additional remote-access video recording equipment. These efforts will be complete in the next several days, making the installation consistent with desired installation methods and longer-term City goals.

The rescue and salvage efforts will conclude in due time. They will be done respectfully and completely. The rebuilding process will then begin and is expected to require 18 to 24 months of diligent work. MNDOT has already requested submissions from qualified contractors and hopes to move to the design/build contracting procurement phase as early as September 2007. Availability of broadband and video technology at the site will hopefully play a role in monitoring, coordinating and streamlining the process of rebuilding a new Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

If our elected officials and city, county, state and federal staff, and our community can sustain the spirit of teamwork that has been experienced this week in Minneapolis, throughout the rebuilding effort, I promise you, that new bridge will serve to connect this city, on many levels, for decades to come.

James Farstad is President of rClient in Minneapolis and, for the past two years, the city's principal consultant on its broadband-wireless implementation. He moderates the Service-Provider Executives and Local-Government CIOs Roundtable at the W2i Digital Cities Convention.

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Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Provides Early Test of Wi-Fi Network

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