From natural disasters and storms to man-made attacks, any number of terrible events can sever the communication lifelines for entire communities.
Just recently in the region, a tornado on May 10 tore through Ottawa County, Okla., and Newton County, leaving thousands of people without a way to call for help.
Ice storms in the past two years have severed communication lines and left residents without power for days.
Now the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department has a truck that can serve as a radio, telephone and Internet communications hub for a community or a region in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.
The Missouri Region D Emergency Communications Support Unit, delivered to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office about two weeks ago, is packed with radios, computers and other electronics that can hook into surviving land lines or communicate wirelessly with first responders and connect them with the outside world.
The vehicle is one of two in Southwest Missouri, according to Jasper County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Matt Stoller, one of the sheriff’s deputies trained to use the vehicle.
The other vehicle is based with the Greene County Sheriff’s Office in Springfield.
Stoller said the $365,000 vehicle was paid for by a grant from Homeland Security.
“We’re looking at a unit that can go anywhere in the state of Missouri and facilitate communication between agencies that are there at the scene, or communication with the outside world if it happens to be severed by natural phenomenon like a tornado or an earthquake, or if we’ve got a WMD possibly,” Stoller said. “This is an asset that Homeland Security felt would be best utilized in this area, primarily, I believe, because we’ve shown a need and I believe that we’re far enough from the big assets in Missouri that if they get hit with some kind of terrorist activity, this is not going to go down as well, so we can drive in and set up.”
Stoller said the unit has eight telephones that use the Internet and the truck’s satellite link to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office’s Internet hub to make phone calls from anywhere in the state or region.
He said the truck could also be hooked into regular phone lines if those are available.
Other features on the truck include:
• Digital computers to link radios of different frequencies and let officers and responders from different agencies talk to each other.
• A mast-mounted camera that can capture images of the scene around the truck from more than 50 feet in the air and transmit those images over the Internet to people who need to see the scene of a disaster.
• Satellite television capability so emergency responders can keep up with the news or weather from outside a disaster site.
• An internal generator that uses the trucks fuel supply to provide power. The generator shuts off when the truck’s fuel falls to about a quarter of a tank so it can be moved if necessary.
• Portable shelters so a headquarters can be set up around the truck and people don’t have to spend a lot of time inside the truck.
“Originally, the idea behind this truck was to set it up, lock it up and walk away,” Stoller said. “It kind of evolved into a situation where we’re not sure if we have the ability to walk away. It’s not a command vehicle, there’s no place to have a conference, there’s no place to have meetings.”
