Call for help: Outmoded radios could keep first responders out of the loop.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

If the big disaster hits anytime soon, Lane County Emergency Manager Linda Cook already knows what will go wrong in the emergency response.

Communications.

All of the area's police, fire, medical services and utilities use different radio frequencies and cannot talk to one another directly. Nor can they rely on land lines and cell phones, which are likely to be overloaded even if they remain functional.

"We know communications are going to be the No. 1 problem. In critiques the day after a major event, it comes up every time. Communications always is written up as needing improvement," Cook says.

The local emergency communication system got a major boost this week with a $3 million Community Oriented Policing Services grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that will provide a common radio network linking Eugene and Springfield police, the sheriff's office and the Eugene Water & Electric Board.

The grant is an important first step, local officials say. The estimated cost for a comprehensive countywide radio network linked to state and federal agencies is $26 million.

For decades, local officials have been cobbling together ways to work within the technical limitations of their 1960s radio technology.

Even so, police from Eugene and Springfield, for example, cannot talk directly with one another or with sheriff's deputies even though the three agencies regularly back up one another on emergency calls.

Instead, they rely on dispatch centers and other procedures to relay information - causing delays, risking mistakes and adding to confusion.

Making the matter more urgent are new federal rules that require the area's current broadband emergency radio system to be turned off in 2014. The rules, designed to free up radio frequency space for the booming market in wireless devices, also forbid the manufacture or sale of parts for the current broadband radio system after 2007, says Sheriff's Capt. Bret Freeman, who oversees the sheriff's patrol deputies and works with other officials to plan the new radio system.

Nationwide, the trend is to build so-called integrated systems that open communications among agencies at all levels. Local emergency managers plan to integrate communications in Lane County among nine law enforcement agencies, 24 fire protection districts, seven emergency medical services, four 911 answering points, and numerous utilities using technology that will last for decades to come.

To cover all of Lane County's 4,618 square miles, radio relay equipment must be updated on 16 mountaintop sites, and hundreds of new radios must be supplied to emergency response workers.

Even at $26 million, the system will be a Chevrolet and not a Cadillac system, Freeman says.

EWEB put up $1 million in matching funds to get the COPS grant, and the system should be operating within 18 months in the metro area.

It's a first, but important step toward linking all local agencies together and also linking them to state and federal agencies in a seamless communications system, Freeman says.

The larger state and federal system also got a recent boost when U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., secured $10 million in federal funding to upgrade radio transmission sites serving the Interstate 5 and Highway 101 corridors, according to a news release from DeFazio's office. Those sites could serve to expand local capabilities as well, although details have not been worked out.

When the big disaster hits, emergency first-responders are trained to drop their regular duties and take a spot in the so-called "incident command" structure, a standardized chain of command for emergencies that is taught to emergency personnel nationwide.

While residents may take some comfort in knowing emergency managers are continually improving their equipment and training, they still seem to miss the main lesson of Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters, Cook says.

The lesson is: It takes time to activate the emergency response system and get help to the scene. Until help arrives, people must be prepared to take care of themselves and their families.