National Association of Counties * Washington, D.C.            Vol. 31, No. 9 * May 10, 1999

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County News Notes

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The twisters that hit the Oklahoma County, Okla. area last week were the worse in 50 years. "I have absolutely never witnessed anything like this in my life," said Earl Rooms, Oklahoma County Board of County Commissioners chair.

It was too early to tell exactly how many county employees had been affected by the devastation, although Rooms said he knew of at least eight–11 county employees whose homes had either been destroyed or severely damaged. "Right now, [our] No. 1 [job] is to make areas as safe as possible for people to go back in and get what’s left of their possessions." Downed power lines and broken gas mains made it difficult to move safely through the affected areas.

In nearby Sedgwick County, Kan. (Wichita), more than 200 county public safety, emergency and public works personnel were helping residents dig out from the massive storm’s impact, said Sedgwick County Commissioner Tom Winters. "It’s times like this when you really appreciate your public safety people." The five-member Board has been very busy with administrative matters in the tornadoes’ wake, but Winters hoped to get into his jeans, grab a shovel and help clean up soon.

Even though the Federal Communications Commission agreed, last year, to release space on the radio spectrum for use by public safety agencies, there’s still a lot of static over the extra bandwidth

Local communications officials, like Michael Slavick in Larimer County, Colo., are frustrated with the pace of FCC’s bandwidth release, which looks to be mired in an argument over standards.

Common standards are good things Slavick says. They are needed for "interoperability" – all radios being able to talk to one another. Yet, the FCC appears to be holding the bandwidth hostage until standards are adopted.

Slavick fears that an FCC-driven process will stall the bandwidth release for another three to five years. That’s especially frustrating since there is already a trade group-developed set of voluntary standards.

Meanwhile, in the 2,600 square-mile county, some towns and other agencies are signing on to a new radio system, which may or may not meet new standards, and the state is adopting yet another set of standards for its communications equipment.

No matter what the standards, Slavick will still need to provide radio communications in the one-third of his county that is so remote, no electrical lines reach there.