FAYETTEVILLE -- A new emergency communications system should be in place in 12-18 months since Washington County voters approved a temporary 0.25% sales tax increase to pay for it.
Capt. Josh McConnell with the Sheriff's Office said March 12 the county is working out details of contracts for the work on the $8.5 million system.
Emergency communication system
The Arkansas Wireless Information Network project began in 2004 with the goal of improving communication among emergency service agencies across the state. State agencies include the Arkansas State Police, Department of Emergency Management and the Game and Fish Commission and many local emergency services agencies have joined the network. All of the systems are linked and agencies can communicate directly from any part of Arkansas served by the system.
Source: State of Arkansas
Voters approved the sales tax March 3 for a period of one year, which should generate about $11 million, according to County Treasurer Bobby Hill. The money will be dedicated to buying equipment such as 12 dispatch consoles and to building infrastructure including four communications towers.
McConnell said the towers will be built in the Hazel Valley area, and near Winslow, Morrow and Lincoln. He said seven of the 12 dispatch consoles will be provided to the Sheriff's Office and five to Central Emergency Medical Services.
McConnell said the county's system, which is about 15 years old, has about 1,700 radios assigned to it. The new system may have fewer, but the number will still exceed 1,500.
The system will link to the statewide Arkansas Wireless Information Network, McConnell said. The network is used by state agencies, including the Arkansas State Police and the Game and Fish Commission, and many local law enforcement agencies, fire departments and other emergency services agencies.
Fayetteville Police and Fire departments have been on the network for several years and Springdale is in the process of switching to a new Arkansas Wireless Information system. In Benton County, Rogers has recently adopted the system and county agencies and the city of Siloam Springs are converting to it.
Rogers Police Chief Hayes Minor said city agencies have been active on the system since November 2018, and it has been "a significant upgrade."
"The system we had been using was old, at its end-of-life," Minor said. "The AWIN system gives us better quality of communication and better coverage."
Minor said the system has greatly reduced dead spots, areas where the older radio system didn't work.
"Even in a city the size of Rogers, with relatively flat terrain, we had some areas where we had no coverage or it was scratchy," he said.
Benton County agencies, including the Sheriff's Office, Road Department and Emergency Services, are working on switching to the network system at a cost of about $3.3 million, according to Maj. Kenneth Paul with the Sheriff's Office.
Paul said the county system will be linked to seven towers in the county, with two of those in Rogers and one in Siloam Springs. He said Motorola, the company installing the system, has guaranteed coverage over 98% of the county for the handheld radios carried by officers and close to 100% for mobile radios, those installed in vehicles.
"We had places in the county, especially in eastern Benton County, where we had no coverage at all," Paul said of the old system. "When you were leaving town and going into those areas, you called dispatch and let them know you were going to be off the air."
Paul said the new system also provides features to improve safety for officers in the field. The radios can be found by GPS positioning, showing the location of the unit in real time. That will be useful in search and rescue situations, so agencies can keep track of exactly where their officers are. The tracking feature would also be useful if something were to happen to an officer and he was unable to respond directly.
Rogers Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said the new system has proven its worth.
"It's a night and day kind of improvement," Jenkins said.
Jenkins said in 2019 when a tornado went through the city, one of the system's towers took a direct hit. The ability to use other towers kept the communication system operating, he said.
"The system never missed a beat," he said.
NW News on 03/23/2020