EMERGENCY CENTERS GET SATELLITE BACKUP

JACKSON -- County emergency operations centers got added insurance Wednesday in communicating during crisis situations.

The Missouri Farm Bureau, with its offices linked by satellite, has agreed to let the state use the company's communication system as a backup in emergencies.

The company, which has offices in all 114 counties, would let the State Emergency Management Agency use the communications system when other communication lines are down because of earthquakes, tornadoes or other disasters.

Gov. Mel Carnahan officially initiated the system Wednesday afternoon in a message to each county.

"In case the telephones go out," said Don Beckham of the Missouri Farm Bureau, "this is here and we can now contact Jefferson City or any of the other counties in the state."

Instead of using telephone lines to send computer data, Farm Bureau's county offices are equipped to send and receive data via satellite.

County emergency center officials now can use the same computer system as a backup by going to the local Farm Bureau office. An additional terminal has been installed at SEMA's Jefferson City headquarters to respond to county communiques.

"This will be good for disasters or even for storms that knock out telephone lines," said Brian Miller, the director of Cape Girardeau County's emergency operations center. "This will be used as an alternative source of communication for us to get in touch with the upper levels of state government."

Miller said the county uses phone lines or radio frequencies to contact other emergency center offices or SEMA, and that the county has experienced times when telephone service was interrupted and interference existed on radio frequencies.

Missouri Farm Bureau and SEMA became interested in the agreement after Dunklin County's emergency center couldn't reach SEMA during a crisis. The director, who was also a member of the Farm Bureau's advisory board in Dunklin County, knew about the computer system and sent a message to the Farm Bureau's Jefferson City office. The message then was relayed to SEMA.

Officials touted the agreement as "the first such private sector-state agreement of this magnitude ever executed."