by Carrie Bartoldus
Astoria, Or – At a special meeting with the Astoria city council on January 22nd, Sgt. Brad Johnston and Lt. Bob Johnson presented a plan to upgrade and consolidate the communications systems throughout the county. Basing it on a combination of a plan already in progress with the county, and using sites located in Astoria, Johnston and Johnson helped pull together the knowledge and resources of multi-jurisdictional agencies to present a plan which has the potential to consolidate 911 dispatch and help all communities throughout the county.
The thing that people found the most frightening throughout the storm was the inability to communicate. Neighborhood after neighborhood watched as lights went out and darkness spread. Reaching for phones to check on one another we found our lines were dead, our cell phones unable to send, and our radios were the only source of our information and connection to the outside world. All too soon everyone knew, on the coast we were isolated.
Neighbors relied heavily on one another for physical support as well as companionship and comfort in the chill and dampness that the next days would bring, and the devastating aftermath that followed. Often it was through the intervention of a neighbor that food came to a hungry one, heat supplied to any elderly person who had run out of wood, medication run to a needy diabetic or a group trip to the grocery store taken. Neighborhoods could be relied upon to pull together. Chain saws buzzing, cutting one another free from downed trees, clearing driveways, gutters, patching windows and rounding up stray animals. We did it together.
Now, once again, it will be our neighborhoods that we must rely on as they decide the fate of where, or if, our communication tower can be moved to a better and more accessible location.
New Tower Possible
Recognizing that the lack of communication was a issue they would have to resolve, the leaders of each jurisdiction decided that establishing a reliable system would be a top priority as soon as immediate concerns were addressed. Currently all public safety radios for north county are on Coxcomb Hill. The problem with this site is that the tower has no more capacity for additional transmitters. During the December storm additional problems became apparent when no one could get to the tower to find out why it wasn’t transmitting. It was unknown whether it was a minor equipment failure (which it turned out to be) or a major problem. The biggest fear was that one of the large trees surrounding the tower had fallen on it, crushing the tower and all of the equipment.
Since the highest accessible point is located in Astoria, it became apparent that it would probably be Astoria where the main communication tower should be located. Sgt. Johnston says he can’t remember how he ended up standing next to Astoria City Manager Paul Benoit when the proposal was made that this be given top priority, but suddenly he found himself and Lt. Johnson working on the plan. Luckily for them, Johnston said, the county had already started on a plan.
Currently, the plan calls for going to a county wide 911 consolidation with Astoria and Seaside dispatch. The second part of the plan would be moving the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to a more central location, tentatively Camp Rilea is being considered as the top choice. Johnston said he felt it is feasible to foresee that a consolidated dispatch would be housed in the same structure as the EOC, making best use of mutually compatible resources.
As part of the county wide 911 consolidation, a transmitter tower in the line of sight is a necessity for public safety radios that agencies use throughout the county. One of the biggest hoops that must be jumped through is the fact that in dealing with so many different agencies, everyone is using different systems that are in different stages of usability.
Some of the systems are relatively new, many of them are abysmally old and a few have difficulties in being compatible. Each jurisdiction has different budgets with rural fire districts having the lowest budgets available to draw on, yet all of them need to be able to communicate with the new system in order for it to be of optimum benefit to the public that they serve.
Johnston said that what has been very beneficial to this project is that all of the agencies have not only been supportive but have been extremely cooperative. Each one has had to inventory the radios and systems that they currently are using, determining ownership of the units, give an overview of where they are at in upgrading the systems if it is needed and whether or not budgets can accommodate those upgrades. 
Grant Could Help
Taking the plan that the county has already started, Johnston and Johnson were then able to requisition the help of Senators Wyden and Smith and Congressman Wu with an application for a congressional grant to appropriate funds which would help all of the public safety systems throughout the county. The application is due by mid-February. Johnston said it will be another six to eight months before they hear back as to whether or not their grant request for $324,000 has been approved.
Even though a grant is needed to complete the project, none of the agencies involved are sitting around waiting for that to happen. They are proceeding ahead with the incremental steps that many of them have already budgeted for and therefore are able to accomplish.
The Astoria Fire Department has already budgeted money for a radio tower and an antenna for Fire “Black” frequency. The Astoria Police Department has added a “voting receiver” to the radio system to increase coverage. They will be asking the city council for additional funds to add another or to move the existing voter to adjust coverage in the next budget year.
“Another thing we will be looking at,” Johnston said, “while we are waiting to see if the federal assistance comes through, is a back-up for the satellite phones. We could be looking at the satellite internet access. We would like to get away from commercially based operations, and relying on their ability to provide us service. We do need to look at all of our options and all of the companies that are providing those kinds of services at this time, based on our needs and budget.”
Locally, the only provider of satellite internet service is Wild Blue which has many customers in the Clatsop County area. Depending on their line of sight with the Wild Blue satellite system, customers have reported varying degrees of success using it, ranging from ideal in the Green Mountain area to dismal in the Walluski area. One customer reported having use throughout the storm while another reported not being able to use it during the slightest sprinkle of rain.
On top of the problems with the location of the current tower being surrounded by trees and becoming inaccessible in time of wind storms, is that there is no room for expansion projects. Additional frequencies have the problem of bleeding over and interfering. A new site is imperative. Sgt Johnston said that equally imperative is a neighborhood that is happy about the project being there.
Obviously the new site would have to have a line of site to Astoria Dispatch, Seaside Dispatch and Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office as well as the Emergency Operations Center. It would also be nice if the site had additional structure capacity, an all weather roadway and if it was a proven radio site. Sgt. Johnston said that at this time the West Irving/Skyline water tower site is being considered as the top choice, addressing all of the needs as well as the wants of a good site.
Also, because of the site’s elevation it would require a shorter tower, lower installation costs, and would fit in the Astoria Fire Department’s budget.
Johnston wanted to strongly emphasize that they would want the neighborhood of West Irving to be behind this project for it to proceed. Before the next steps are taken in the planning process they will be canvassing the area asking the neighbors for their input to mitigate concerns and address them before it got to the development stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment