New radio system clears the air for emergency response

Shawn Olson, Plymouth County's E911 coordinator and information technology director, explains the new radio system which will allow emergency responders using different types of radios or other communications systems to all talk together. Olson helped design the system for the county.

Local emergency teams work against time to diffuse a chemical bomb.

There's an expert on this type of bombs, but he's in New York.

No problem.

With a new interoperability radio system owned by Plymouth County Emergency Services, a local emergency responder could call that expert on a cellphone, then plug the cellphone into the system.

Everything that expert said would be immediately relayed to the radios of everyone diffusing the bomb.

"You could be in a bomb suit and he could tell you how to neutralize the bomb over his cell phone in New York," explained Shawn Olson, Plymouth County E911 coordinator and information technology director.

Olson worked with local emergency management leaders to help design this communication tool, which is completely portable.

The bomb scenario is just one of many uses, he said.

A $40,000 Homeland Security grant helped purchase the radio system and a generator to operate it, Olson said.

The system is designed to make communication between agencies responding to an emergency work and work well.

"We have the unique challenge of integrating with other agencies beyond our local borders where they don't always have the same radios," Olson said.

Around five years ago, Woodbury County emergency responders switched to an 800 mHz communication system.

This is not compatible with the VHF radios used by 90 percent of northwest Iowa, including Plymouth County.

"VHF and 800 do not talk to each other without a device to tie them together," Olson said.

Woodbury County has a system in place to link the two, but it was not mobile and a high-cost option, Olson said.

"We were looking more for a tool that could be rapidly deployed in a carrying case and rapidly set up," he said.

In addition, the switch of all emergency responder radios to narrowband frequency has caused different agencies to program their radios differently, making it difficult to communicate between agencies without reprogramming them, Olson said.

"In the past, everyone had one frequency, and everyone communicated on that one frequency," he said. "Not today."

After more than three years of planning and searching for options, Olson and other planners designed the radio system with a company in Georgia that made a portable device that would connect multiple types of radios together.

Olson worked with the company to create a system for Plymouth County and the region which can allow up to eight different communication systems, whether radio or phone or other, to talk to each other.

For example, it could allow Sioux City's hazardous materials team to communicate with the local fire department and police as well as officers from the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) and even an air ambulance.

The new system, which fits in a 2 1/2-foot protective plastic cube, can be carried by two people and set up within 15 minutes at the scene of an incident or disaster, Olson said.

In an emergency, the incident commander who is leading the response can stand at the new radio system and be able to communicate with each agency individually or all of them at once, Olson added.

The system probably won't be used for every day fire and accident calls, he said. It's more designed to handle larger incidents with agencies responding from different areas.

If the Plymouth County communications center couldn't operate for some reason, this system could become an emergency communications center, dispatching all county agencies with the help of a portable radio tower if needed, Olson said.

However, it couldn't answer incoming 911 calls, he said.

When Olson helped tailor the system for Plymouth County's needs, one of his main requests was that it be simple to use.

"I wanted to be able to train people to use it in 15 minutes," he said. "I don't want people to have to read a three-ring binder to operate it."

He explained to members of the Le Mars Fire-Rescue Squad how to use the system during a disaster drill last week.

"It went very, very well," Olson said.

Le Mars Fire-Rescue Chief Dave Schipper said the radio interoperability system will be very useful.

"It's mobile. We can take it to any scene we want. It's portable. We can haul it anywhere in the county," he said. "We can talk to the police on their walkies, we can talk to Sioux City Haz-Mat, Sioux County Fire, the Iowa DOT, whoever. One radio. It links in to everybody. What an asset."

Olson has also used the new radio system in training sessions in Marcus and in Des Moines.

The system is considered a "regional asset" by Homeland Security and it can be requested to be used in disasters throughout the region if necessary, Olson said.

He trained with the system at a special class in Des Moines to become an All-Hazard Communications specialist.

"I was one of 16 in the state of Iowa to take this class," he said. "The reason I was accepted was because of this box."

At that training, Olson was able to drill with state agencies like the Iowa Department of Public Health and the DOT.

"The county is in very good shape," Olson said, adding that positive relationships among Plymouth County emergency agencies are crucial to good communication.

"We're very fortunate with where we're at right now," he said.

Source: http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1895096.html

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