Submitted by Sara, Aug 25, 2007 05:46

Minneapolis was particularly lucky that a little over a year ago our city council agreed to a private-public partnership to provide wi-fi throughout the city at low subscription rates, and rig the system so it could be used by all emergency responders if necessary. Well on August 1 it got its first test. The system is not ready for roll out yet, but both ends of the bridge were in areas where the system was installed, so they turned it on, and interconnected all of the emergency responders within a few minutes of the collapse. Any cell phone, any PDS, any wi-fi capable computer could get access to emergency response transmissions. All of the state and suburban responders easily tied into the system. Result -- a quite well organized response, putting assets where they were needed, and avoiding unnecessary responders backed up in the neighborhoods.

Senator Clinton must be paying attention to local Minnesota News, because all the emergency response teams, the Mayor, the City Council, and many other folk, were delighted with the result. There may well be other sorts of disasters where wi-fi would not work well, but this case suggests it is one piece of an emergency communications net.

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.