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"color: black">Orange Beach Battalion Chief Wade Stevens says the

new countywide emergency radio system is close to being up and

running.

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"color: black">Stevens made his report to the City Council on

Tuesday.

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"color: black">“We’re going to implement this system fairly soon

assuming the county commission decides to move forward on their

end,” Stevens said after the meeting. “It will basically build out

the infrastructure to all the agencies to come on to the same

system. Not everyone will do it, not everyone will be required to

do it.

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"color: black">“It’s going to allow for one common infrastructure.

A nationally accepted infrastructure and a nationally accepted

standard that everybody can start to migrate to in the long

term.”

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"color: black">The effort for the countywide system began when the

Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management

Agency awarded $1.2 million to the City of Orange Beach as a part

of the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program in March of 2009.

The city had to provide a five percent match of about

$62,000.

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"color: black">“When we saw the opportunity for the grant we said

if we can’t get the whole countywide system because there was

limitations in the grant funding, we would go after what would be

our piece of it, so we did,” Stevens said. “It was going to benefit

the city whether it went countywide or not. It was the best choice

to make.”

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"color: black">Since that time more funding has become available,

Stevens said, and the effort to expand throughout the county is

ongoing.

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"color: black">“We’ve formed committees, finally come up with a

plan, we’ve solicited for funds from the state which they agreed to

provide through a Homeland Security grant that they had,” Stevens

said. “Gulf Shores came on the system, State Parks came on the

system. All this time we’ve been in contact with other agencies in

the county. We have since secured a little over $5 million from

Homeland Security to take this system countywide and make it a

countywide public safety radio network.”

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"color: black">Stevens has been instrumental in leading the effort

for getting system working in Baldwin County. The equipment, he

said, is currently the leading technology in public safety

communications. Departments who use the system will still maintain

their own radios and talk groups, but will have the ability to

connect to the countywide system as

needed.

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"color: black">“For instance, the Gulf State Park fire, there was

communication difficulty there because of the fact that we didn't

have the operable communications,” Stevens said. “Those problems

won't exist once this system is built

up.”