The Washington County Sheriff’s Department is in need of new consoles after lighting strikes wreaked havoc on their radio system.
At the Washington County Board of Supervisors’ Monday morning meeting, Emergency Management Division director David Burford talked about what it would take to acquire new consoles for the department.
Due to unforeseen weather occurrences a few months ago, specifically, lightning strikes, the radio system has experienced problems.
“The consoles at the sheriff’s office and Greenville Police Department are still down and have been down for three months now,” Burford reported.
Tower construction around the Delta has been very prevalent, making it difficult to consult with anyone involved with towers directly as it relates to the MSWIN tower.
Motorola was addressing the problem when it first occurred but is no longer available. “The fact is when we originally went with this system, we decided to go with the microwave on the tower because overtime, it was going to be cheaper than paying for a phone circuit,” Burford explained.
Burford said what was not factored in was all the lightning strikes.
“We’ve had two (lightning strikes) in the last three years that have taken our system out and cost us about an additional $25,000 or $26,000.”
Burford received a quote from AT&T on their realtime fiber circuit which was $844.06 a month for a 60-month contract.
He recommended the board considers moving to the fiber circuits because it would provide a more stable platform, getting them underground and away from future potential lightning strikes, making it significantly less likely for any damage to be done.
Burford said switching to the fiber circuit doesn’t make any changes to the fact that they have to deal with the tower, which would be an additional expenditure.
According to Burford, the best measure to take is switching to the AT&T fiber circuit.
“It has some redundancies built in it and gives the security and protection from the lightning strikes. That is a connection from our radio system server at the Washington County Sheriff office out to the MSWIN tower on Burdett Road,” he said.
Supervisor Lee Gordon asked whether transitioning to the AT&T fiber circuit would be a permanent fix for the issue and whether or not AT&T was the only company capable of providing the service.
Burford said after doing some research, AT&T was the only one who could address switching to the fiber circuit and that right now, the fiber circuit is the best way to ensure protection from potential damage caused by the weather. Burford also noted he checked with C-Spire, but they never gave a quote.
Having the consoles down puts a huge strain on the sheriff’s office and a really big strain on Greenville Police Department, Burford said, calling it a “nightmare for dispatchers.”
Board President Carl McGee said one of his biggest concerns was the amount of money (roughly a quarter of a $1,000,000), that has already gone into resolving the console problem.
Collectively, the board is eager for a solution that will be efficient in terms of cost and sustainability.
As for an alternative, Burford said the only option would be to put a new tower up and a new microwave on it.
