Florida’s Okaloosa Board of County Commissioners has okayed 12 new cell towers to assist with emergency communications. As NFWDailyNews.com reports, $25 million in funding is being raised from a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2018. The country is poised to begin work on the first three 800 MHz P25 emergency communications towers. The entire project is expected to take two years to complete.
“For a list of reasons, the radio system was inoperable and incapable of handling all of the calls coming into 911,” stated Sheriff Eric Aden. “Ultimately the system got overloaded and nobody could talk on the radio system.” He was speaking in reference to the shooting incident at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School where rescue personnel were hampered by poor communications. The investment in the new cell towers should help keep the county connected and better able to address any future emergencies.
In addition to building new cell towers, funds will also go towards purchasing new equipment for county first responders, reported NFWDailyNews.com. “It isn’t just the Sheriff’s Office that’s going to benefit. We’ve purchased the outfitting for all municipalities,” confirmed Aden. “Down the line, they’re responsible for their own, but right now we purchased that as a buy-in for them to be able to utilize our radio system in the event something happens. The radio system was so bad… the people down on the actual command post on the scene could not talk on the radio and relay vital information back and forth to the multiple agencies that were responding,” he continued. “That’s a good example of a rescue that a radio system like this would have been absolutely critical.”
The county is still in the process of securing the land needed to complete the array of cell towers. Steve Ouradnik, land radio manager for the Sheriff’s Office, said that engineers are currently investigating variables such as the terrain, vegetation and building density appropriate for the rest of the tower sites. Most importantly, the chosen sites must address the coverage dead spots that still exist in Okaloosa County.
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