Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Useless radios (XTS-3000) bought by useless bureaucrats

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 06:07:33 -0400

Useless radios bought by useless bureaucrats
by Jimmy Breslin

Always, when you put the subject in a room for ceremony or seminar, the
World Trade Center becomes a religious experience. At yesterday's
meeting of the Senate 9/11 commission, the theater of the New School University
on West 12th Street became a church. Starting at a little before 9 in the
morning, the commissioners in front of the room were solemn and deeply
respectful as a report on the attack was read to them, along with films
of the explosions. The commissioners then bowed their heads as three of our
city's wonders of the world took the stage.

First was Baghdad Bernie Kerik. He is called Baghdad because he went
over and put the whole Iraqi police force into great shape. That the Iraqi
police force is no more is not Kerik's fault. He is here.

Next was Richie Sheirer, who was a telephone clerk until Rudy Giuliani
told him that he was a courageous genius. Sheirer then stood up and told
the world, "I'm smart!" He spoke yesterday and I don't know what he
said.

When these fellows go to this bureaucratic language, you want to maim.

The last of the morning's brilliance was Thomas Von Essen, who was the
fire commissioner when the planes attacked.

Let me tell you about him.

I sat all morning with one line from the presentation running through my
mind. The presentation said:

"NYPD Aviation radioed in immediately that the South Tower had
collapsed. At 10:08 a.m., an aviation helicopter pilot advised that he did not
believe the North Tower would last much longer. There was no way to
relay this information to the fire chiefs in the North Tower."

There was no way because the Fire Department radios could not get the
signal from the police in the sky. The tower came down on the
firefighters. If you care to count, that cost 323 lives.

And it was because of radios, which were useless in the air around
110-story buildings. And when it all started with these radios, they
were useless in a two-story building in Richmond Hill, in Queens, on March
19, 2001.

At a break at the New School yesterday morning, I took a ride out to the
house in Queens where the radios first failed.

It is a two-story white frame house with a blue door and a brilliant
green lawn. It is at 112-19 Myrtle Ave.

On March 19 of 2001, there was a fire in the basement and Luke Healy of
Engine 305 ran out of air and collapsed. He called "Mayday" on his
radio,one of 2,700 new digital two-way radios bought from Motorola
[CORRECTION:
The Fire Department did not use digital Motorola radios at the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The radios, which had proven faulty in March
2001, had been taken out of service. Jimmy Breslin's column Wednesday
incorrectly reported that the radios had been used by firefighters on
Sept. 11. pg. A08 ALL 5/21/04], with a total purchase of $14 million
envisioned. Dozens of firefighters were around the house. Nobody heard
him. Finally, somebody found Healy and dragged him out into the air.

"In this situation, a guy could just follow the hose line out," Von
Essen, the commissioner, said. "That person was probably never in any real
danger. He probably just panicked."

That was a beautiful statement.

The commissioner and his mayor took the radios onward from the two-story
house on Myrtle Avenue. Yesterday, the present owner, Marilou Montero,
waswatching the hearings, and particularly the conversations about radios.

"We knew a firefighter was in the basement fire here, but we didn't know
that when we bought the house. The real estate agent wouldn't tell us
about something like that. The firefighter was hurt. He didn't die."

"No, he didn't."

"I got this house on a steal. It was $410,000. Today, it would go for
five. Four bedrooms and the downstairs is an apartment. That's the
basement where the fire was."

The basement fire was on March 19, 2001. On March 25, Giuliani said the
radios were good and the only thing wrong was that they needed a little
more testing. He said the firefighters complaining were petulant union
members.

On April 3, Alan Hevesi, then the city comptroller, wrote, "I am told
that the practice in the Fire Department was always to carefully test all new
equipment with the cooperation of the union. This was not done with
these radios. There was no competitive bidding. They didn't go out into the
market to see what was available and pick the best. To avoid
competition, the Fire Department bought the new radios using an existing contract
that was used to buy replacements for no more than $2.9 million. They used
this contract to buy an entire new communications system for $14 million."

This is why political careers are so enchanting to the needy. A no-bid
contract is the best way to buy a new house.

Whatever they bought, whatever they paid, the Fire Department tried
using these great radios on Sept. 11 and found the only thing you could hear
on them was the death march.

Yesterday, almost three years since men working for this city died while
they stood in a building lobby and never knew what hit them, a group of
cops were standing outside the New School and one of them said:

"We still don't have a system that works today."

Copyright  2004, Newsday, 

Inc.http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nybres193808986may19,0,4955551.column?coll=ny-news-columnists

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