Coconino County, about three hours drive north of Phoenix, has a population of about 135,000 all stretched across scenic red rock wilderness. Cell coverage is nearly impossible in many spots, and the county’s emergency management department is wrestling with how to wiggle in more towers to improve its ability to alert residents and the plethora of tourists who come there every year to enjoy the Great American West. That is, without getting swept away by a flash flood, a rock slide or wall of flames say what “creeping up Oak Creek Canyon near Slide Rock,” as the Arizona Daily Sun characterized it last week.
A major part of the solution, from the county’s perspective, is the installation of more cellular towers throughout the canyon. Progress is being made, with one application for a 140-foot tower near Junipine Resort receiving approval by the county’s planning and zoning commission in October. But at the canyon’s southern end, residents oppose. They are concerned about health, visual and property value impacts. “The case shows that in the narrow, steep-walled canyon, finding a place to locate the infrastructure needed to improve communications may prove a difficult task,” says reporter Emory Cowan in The Sun.
But the risks and dangers of inconsistent cell service is a message John Herman has been repeating for months since the Slide Fire ripped through Oak Creek Canyon. The 75-year-old owns a second home in the Pine Flats neighborhood in the northern part of the canyon. When the flames were creeping toward his home, “it was scary as hell,” Herman said. Since, he’s helped been pressing leaders for a better communications infrastructure in the canyon.
“My wife and I drive that road and if we have a blowout or I have a heart attack, then we’re totally stranded and have to wait for somebody to come by — and then what?” said Herman, who barely gets a cell phone signal at his house. “It’s not 21st century cell phone coverage. I couldn’t possibly rely on it for an emergency.”
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