Reliable Police, Fire Radios a Must
Police and
firefighters need top-notch communications equipment when they respond to
emergencies, as the 1993 Laguna Beach fires graphically demonstrated.
Firefighters in Laguna Beach reported difficulty in communicating with
other emergency services as flames roared along the hillsides, consuming
homes.
An expensive new system is on the
way, but problems need to be resolved to win the confidence of
law-enforcement personnel and provide an adequate level of assistance.
Orange County proposed a replacement
that would allow emergency communication for firefighters and police. It
was to replace the 1970s-era system, considered overburdened. But when the
bankruptcy intervened in 1994, costs got cut, the new system was trimmed
and difficulties are now coming to light.
Last month, county officials took the
first steps toward expanding the new system, which unfortunately has
disappointed the two police agencies and the fire department that have
been the first to use it. One early failure was the inability of police in
the Irvine and Tustin police headquarters buildings to hear dispatchers
who sometimes were close by. That is one reason the county put any
expansion of the system on hold earlier this year. But officials later
gave the go-ahead for an expansion, as long as technical reports show
improvements in solving the problems.
The Motorola company, which is building
the emergency radio system, has received high marks for responding to
these complaints and others from the county fire department. The company
has acknowledged "glitches" in the way the equipment has worked so far and
promises they will be ironed out. But company officials also noted that
the final capabilities will not be what was envisioned originally.
Because this system is budgeted at $80
million, it had better be good. If it is not, it's time to find a new one.
Before it is installed, it will need to
satisfy the men and women in the departments who will depend on it when
chasing down suspects and rescuing trapped motorists. Firefighters who
tried the radios said they were forced to stand by windows to find an
adequate signal. A Motorola official said the system may not work in some
clusters of buildings.
The original
proposal would have guaranteed that radios worked in buildings that
absorbed up to 20 decibels of signal strength. After the bankruptcy, the
final contract stipulated that the threshold would be 15 decibels. It may
be that the radios will not work in every single building, but coverage
should be as broad as possible. And the public-safety personnel will have
to be told just where the system will not work, so that neither their
lives nor those of the people they aid will be jeopardized.
Somehow, the county will need to show
police and firefighters that the new system is better than the old one and
will function in an emergency.
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