‘It’s like day and night’ — Emergency responders say there’s a need for proposed penny tax radio upgrade
When firefighters run headlong into a blazing building, the last thing they want is to be cut off from talking to one another.
If a dangerous situation arises, or supervisors outside of a burning building need to talk to firefighters inside, a breakdown of communication can put lives at risk. In some areas of Greenwood County, this is what emergency responders face daily.
“You probably don’t want to see my frustration levels,” said Steve Holmes, county fire coordinator, “When I’m trying to talk to dispatch and I have to put my radio up because my cellphone is the only thing that works.”
In some spots of the county, Holmes said radio dead zones overlap with cellphone dead zones, leaving responders completely unable to communicate.
A solution could be on it’s way — if Greenwood voters approve the Capital Project Sales Tax’s additional one percent sales tax on the Nov. 8 ballot. One of the 27 projects that would be funded by the tax would spend an estimated $4,452,584.62 to ensure all of Greenwood’s responders are using a radio system with fewer dead zones.
The proposed 800-megahertz radio system provides more coverage for responders, and once all agencies are using it, personnel will be able to talk directly to one another. Right now, Greenwood’s various agencies use different radio systems and have to rely on dispatch to bounce messages back and forth, said John Long, officer in charge of professional standards with the sheriff’s office.
“A captain on the road should be able to talk to a battalion chief in the city fire department,” he said. “When you’ve got something happening in a hurry, you need a direct line of communication.”
The new system, which Long said would likely take about six months to install, would also allow Greenwood’s agencies — including Lander University and Piedmont Technical College’s police departments — to communicate directly with any other county’s agencies that has the 800 MHz system. If Greenwood responders need to help another county with an emergency, everyone on the same radio system will be able to talk directly to each other.
“I can be standing in the Lowcountry and I can talk to firefighters in Greenwood,” Holmes said.
Passing messages through dispatch can slow important emergency communication, he said.
“It may take a deputy 30 seconds to tell a dispatcher something, then it takes her 30 seconds to tell me,” he said. “It’s a public safety issue. When someone calls 911, they don’t want the response slowed because agencies can’t communicate with dispatch or each other.”
The Emergency Services Department switched to the 800 MHz system about six years ago, said Director Derek Kinney, and he said it made a huge impact.
“It made a world of difference — it’s like day and night,” he said. “There were still dead spots, and you’re going to have that with any system, but there were far fewer.”
The upgrade has been a longtime coming, Long said, as a national push for local agencies to switch started shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Currently, Greenwood agencies are responsible for maintaining the radio systems in use, but the new system would use cellphone towers, and would be maintained by Motorola — the provider that gave the estimated cost of the upgrades.
“This is the difference between someone getting help in a hurry and them being stranded on the side of the road,” Long said. “This is not something we want — it’s something we need.”
Contact Damian Dominguez at 864-634-7548 or follow on Twitter @IJDDOMINGUEZ.
Originally Published by Index-Journal on:Aug 21, 2016
By DAMIAN DOMINGUEZ ddominguez@indexjournal.com
