Last week, just shortly before the commencement of the funeral ceremony for former President Ronald Reagan, an unidentified aircraft flew into restricted airspace over Washington, D.C. The Capitol building was evacuated for a short time until the aircraft was identified as friendly.
Shortly after the September 11th disaster, Congressman, Senators, and staff were provided with Blackberry communication devices that could be used in the case of such emergencies. Blackberries are wireless devices that combine telephone, text messaging, Internet access, and software application in one handheld mechanism. They were chosen because after 911 the services for many mobile phones were useless due to an overload of emergency calls. At that time most Blackberries remained in service. Ironically, since that time the Blackberry service has changed networks and now uses the same network as most mobile telephones. Blackberries, however, are still perfect for emergency situations since they allow messages to be distributed quickly to multiple users.
The evacuation was a perfect scenario for the Blackberries. If the notification had been sent out over the Blackberry network, it would have hastened the evacuation. Yet, Cokie Roberts of ABC News reported that the blackberry notification did not take place. The cause of the failure to use the Blackberries was not noted, but it is likely that someone just forgot to implement the notification. It’s a good lesson for us all. There are times when the technology is available to help us, but it can only do so if we have the presence of mind to put it into action.
