Security council OKs plans for communication equipment

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The state Homeland Security Advisory Council signed off on plans Friday to purchase equipment that should help law enforcement around the state better communicate during an emergency.

The council approved a proposal to spend $10 million in federal homeland security funding on two projects that should help both metropolitan areas and smaller, rural communities.

About $4 million of the funds will help purchase computer equipment for the St. Louis and Kansas City areas so law enforcement from various agencies can talk on the same system. The switches, as they're called, should cover most of the state. One would likely be housed at the Independence Police Department. The St. Louis host has not been determined.

Security officials also hope to eventually obtain a third switch for the central part of the state so communications won't be interrupted even if one system breaks down because of a disaster.

Another $6 million is dedicated to helping law enforcement agencies outside the state's urban areas upgrade their emergency radios from a wideband to narrowband system, at a cost of about $2,500 per radio. State emergency officials said local agencies will need to make that transition by 2013. The funds will jump-start that process and allow agencies to get equipment that also can be used with the regional systems being established in Kansas City and St. Louis.

Also Friday, the council approved a proposed executive order that, if signed by Gov. Matt Blunt, would require all state agencies to be trained and begin using the National Incident Management System by Oct. 1, 2006. The idea is to have emergency officials all over the country, from the federal to the local level, using the same procedures and terms to better respond and understand one another during a disaster.

If the state does not begin using the system by then, it risks losing federal homeland security funds.

Public Safety Director Mark James said the ideas were already being considered, but the need was made clear with the communications breakdown in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, as well as problems emergency personnel had communicating in New York after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"If you look at the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, it in my view validates that we were on the right road in identifying this as a priority," he said.