The Allen County Fire Chiefs Association is looking to update critical communications infrastructure including the outdated paging system with American Rescue Plan Act funds.
The chief’s association has asked county commissioners for $1.68 million of the $74 million in funds the county has access to in hopes of replacing their dated VHF paging system, WANE.com reported.
The upgrade from VHF to the 800-megahertz paging and alerting system also requires laptops and mobile data terminals in the departments vehicles.
A representative for the chief’s association said the current Motorola paging system is over 20 years old, adding parts and technical support for the VHF system are no longer available.
Currently, outside of the city of Fort Wayne, there are eleven departments with 23 fire stations and close to 550 fire and medical personnel in Allen County.
“Currently we have pagers, but unfortunately, we are going to get to a point where it will be harder to rely on our system. One lightning strike would take out a tower and we would not be able to run that system anymore and we would be in a world of hurt,” Robert Boren, president of the Allen County Fire Chiefs Association told WANE.com.
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