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08/08/2022 11:30 AMESSEX
Town officials received word from the State Bond Commission on July 29 that grant funding to aid in the construction of an emergency radio tower and other important emergency upgrades has been approved.
"I'm grateful to Gov. (Ned) Lamont and the State Bond Commission for their support of our local community," said First Selectman Norm Needleman. "An emergency radio tower in our area, among other emergency equipment upgrades, will play an important and valuable role in preserving and supporting public safety. I look forward to this project moving forward."
The State Bond Commission approved the $165,000 grant request for upgrades to the emergency radio tower on Highland Terrace and the installation of an on-site generator, resources that help the town and other municipalities in the Lower Connecticut River Valley to more effectively prepare and communicate in the case of future emergencies. This was something seen as important to Lamont who commented on the approval of the bond for its purposes.
“This state funding will be used to upgrade the emergency response equipment in Essex to ensure that the region continues to have modernized communications capabilities in the event of emergencies,” said Lamont, who serves as chairman of the State Bond Commission. “I am glad that we can partner with the town on this project.”
State Rep. Christine Palm for the 36th district, which includes Essex, Chester, Deep River, and Haddam, commended Lamont and the Commission for their approval of the bond.
“It’s encouraging that our community will have stronger and more resilient resources in the event of emergency,” said Rep. Palm. “I’m grateful to Gov. Lamont and the State Bond Commission for committing to and investing in local safety.”
According to Needleman, other than needing to modernize town emergency communications, a significant factor that played into the application for the state bond was the decision for it and emergency response services to morph over onto a state radio system of which other towns in the region have also decided to become a part, including Chester and Deep River. The state system Essex and other RiverCOG towns have joined is 800MHz band used by the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection.
“It’s really a great project that the state undertook to streamline the radio system. You get on their system for free, but you have to buy your own equipment,” said Needleman. “We need a new receiver for that kind of frequency.”
According to Needleman, the state’s 800MHz radio system should have the capacity to allow all municipalities across the state including Essex to participate in communications in the case of an emergency situation, given the technological upgrades for the town.
Included in those upgrades is the other equipment the town will need to purchase, which alongside the radio tower and its adjacent generator will be new tri-band radio kits provided to emergency services including the Emergency Management, Police Department, Fire Department, and the Ambulance Association. Needleman hopes that every person and vehicle part of town emergency response services will be equipped with new radios. He anticipates that up to six radios will be present at Town Hall, and some of them to be given to Emergency Management and the Board of Selectmen.
While it is undetermined when the town will have all its new upgrades firmly in place, Needleman said he believes it may take up to a year for the project to be fully realized.
The Essex Fire Department will see its emergency communications capabilities bolstered through the technical upgrades, according to Paul Fazzino of the Department. While joining the statewide 800MHz system, that band will be one half of a hybrid system that will incorporate an UHF simulcast frequency that will dispatch Essex and other all towns that are equipped with the system, including Durham, Middlefield, and Haddam part of Valley Shore Emergency Communications (VSEC), for more efficient communications in the case of an emergency. This makes the UHF frequency a strictly regional-based band, while the 800MHz state system will be used for broader communications outside of VSEC bounds, given its greater reach of coverage.
“The state has coverage everywhere, and although it's called a ‘street-level’ system, we cross-band that 800MHz to our UHF frequency, and then we can go interior to a building, so that at no time no firefighter or apparatus are out of range,” said Fazzino.
The enhancement in fire communications has been the work of Fazzino and Rick Darin, the Executive Director of VSEC, for the past two year, with the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and technical experts.
The new tri-band radio kits using the hybrid-system will be installed in each fire apparatus and chief vehicles, according to Fazzino, and allows for those cross-band shifts between frequency bands in any given emergency situation so that the correct band is being used for communications.
One of the greatest added beneficial features of having radios that work with the state 800MHz system is that it will allow for talk-groups to be formed around its frequency, a model that can be very helpful in the case of an emergency that needs state assistance.
“Say we have a large gas spill in Essex, and we asked the Department of [Energy and] Environmental Protection to come down and assist us, we can switch to their talk group and talk directly to the individual that’s responding to our area,” said Fazzino. “
Today you call dispatch and say ‘Hey, I need DEEP here,’ they call them and dispatch somebody, but we can’t talk to them until they get on scene. That could be an hour, half-hour, 20 minutes. That’s time that we could be doing something and letting them know what is going on directly. There are a lot of features to this system that make it so desirable.”