Subject: [NEXTEL-1] New York- County radio system goes out Emergency service cut for over 4 hours

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 14:21:31 -0400

County radio system goes out Emergency service cut for over 4 hours

By Andrew Tutino
Journal Staff

LANSING -- Tompkins County's emergency radio system was knocked out for
more than four hours on Wednesday morning after a faulty part in the
aging system malfunctioned.

The county's fire departments and emergency responders were left without
radio communications, and there was limited communication for law
enforcement, said Lee Shurtleff, the director of emergency response in
the county.
"A part malfunctioned and it brought us to our knees," Shurtleff said.

The analog microwave radio communication system is about 30 years old
and outdated.  Last October, the Legislature approved funding for a new
digital microwave system to be installed in the next few years.

But until then, Shurtleff and emergency personnel across the county are
keeping their fingers crossed that the system will stay operational.

Wednesday's outage occurred at about 7 a.m., when a dispatcher sent test
bells across the system to ensure it was working properly.

The system remained silent, and officials knew they had a major problem
on their hands, Shurtleff said.
The part that malfunctioned created static that was so loud it distorted
any radio signals that tried to get through the microwave system.

There were no major emergencies between 7 a.m. and noon, Shurtleff said.

The county was in luck because the technicians who are working on the
new 911 Center were either at work or on their way, so the necessary
manpower was available to repair the system.

"We took a bullet and were hemorrhaging," Shurtleff said. "But the
people from Motorola were able to stop it. We still have a terminally
ill patient on our hands. We need to keep it alive for a few more
months."

When the system went down, county officials began calling officials at
each of the volunteer fire departments in the county to ask them to have
someone man each station until the system was working again.

Shurtleff said the process of calling people in to man stations was
similar to what officials did years ago. In the near future, departments
will be dispatched by touching a computer screen when the county
officially opens its 911 Center on Brown Road. But on Wednesday morning,
officials started calling people that they knew, relying on a network of
individuals to ensure all fire stations were manned.

"We went back 30 years in time this morning," Shurtleff said.

In Lansing, Fire Chief Dale Oplinger said the fire department relied on
its own paging system to monitor any potentially hazardous situations on
Wednesday. Even with its own paging system, though, the department would
have had problems had a call come in to extinguish a large fire.

"If it were a real serious call, only about a quarter of our members
would have gotten paged," Oplinger said. "There is a huge need for a new
system in the county and it affects us very much."

Legislature Chairman Tim Joseph said he thinks the system can survive
until a new one is installed, but maintaining the structure will get
more difficult.

"The longer we go, the more problems we are going to have like this,"
Joseph said. "I don't think anything will happen that can't be fixed.
But it will be harder, more expensive and more frequent." Joseph said
the county waited to build a new system because the state had promised
to pay for a substantial part of it if the new system would be
compatible with the state's new system.
"Finally, we essentially gave up and said we have to build," Joseph
said. "We decided to build as flexible as possible so it will be
compatible with whatever (the state) builds. We couldn't wait any
longer."

Shurtleff said Wednesday's problem was one of the bigger problems the
county has faced with the radio system in recent years.
If the malfunction occurred just 12 hours earlier, when the Slaterville
Springs Fire Department was dispatched along with the Tompkins County
Sheriff's Office and the New York State Police to a report of a shotgun
being fired on Fire Tower Road Tuesday night, communication with the
fire personnel there would have been next to impossible, he said.

Though many people carry cell phones now, it is still not the preferred
tool for emergency situations, he said.

"It is not the instrument of communication needed to maintain officer
safety," Shurtleff said. "I can't imagine if this happened (Tuesday)
night. You can't imagine the difficulties we've had. We are sitting on a
time bomb."
Contact: [email-masked]

Copyright ©2004 The Ithaca Journal. All rights reserved.
http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20040520/localnews/459130.html

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