Just in time for Christmas, Blaine County has been notified that it will receive a large infusion of federal money to help fund a project that seeks to improve the interoperability of countywide emergency communications.
Announcing the good news to the Blaine County Commission on Tuesday was the county's disaster services coordinator, Chuck Turner.
In all, the county was awarded a $1.1 million grant, Turner said to the delight of the commissioners.
The grant is part of a larger $6 million pot of federal cash that 26 different Idaho county were vying for a portion of, he said.
Turner said the reason Blaine County has been given such a significant share of that money has to do with actions local leaders have taken to look at what deficiencies exist in the line of communication tying fire, law enforcement and other emergency services personnel together.
He said that in the wake of the 9/11 disaster in New York City and Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast, emergency officials throughout the country learned just how lacking is the communications interoperability between different agencies.
"The fire couldn't talk to the law in New York City," he explained.
In the past year, the county has been working with communications giant Motorola, which Turner said contributed to the large grant being awarded.
Turner said the company conducted a survey looking at what infrastructure improvements need to be built to streamline emergency communications in Blaine County.
"We've got to have that," he said.
Turner said the money from the federal grant will help pay for implementing the recommendations that came out of the Motorola study. This could include new transmission towers being placed at select high points throughout the county.
Details of all of the county's emergency communications planning went into the grant application, he said.
"We were reasonable. We were accurate," he said. "Everything fell into place."
Turner said the emergency communications infrastructure installed by the county will tie in with a larger north-to-south emergency communications trunk line the state of Idaho has announced it will build.
Although the estimated cost of the county's preparations is not yet known, he said it could be in the range of $2 million to $3 million. Where funds to pay for the rest of that cost will come from isn't known, he added.
"There will probably be more grants coming out," he said.
