Public safety agencies statewide will be getting new and improved radios.
This snow storm is a perfect example of the need for radios for local emergency responders. More than 350 agencies are getting a total of $4.2 million in federal funding to purchase nearly 3,600 new radios with enhanced mutual aid channel capacity.
Tami Jackson is with the Office of Justice Assistance. She says shared mutual aid channels enable reliable communications between several emergency response agencies at critical times. Jackson says there are nearly 42,000 total radios in the state, and before 2003 only 3,000 were able to access the mutual aid channels.
“After this round of funding we will have boosted that capability to 90% of total radios, which is just a tremendous increase in progress.”
Jackson says this is the fifth round of equipment grants-funded by federal Homeland Security in the past few years.
Jackie Johnson 1:24
