‘If we can’t talk, we can’t respond’: Wading River Fire Department begins massive communications overhaul

For Wading River firefighters, the challenge of putting out a fire is made even more difficult by the area’s many hills, which can often cut off communication between firefighters by disrupting radio signals.

But after decades of struggling to communicate across staticky radios, one of the fire department’s aging radio towers is finally set to be upgraded, boosting the tower’s signal and making life a little easier for local volunteers.

Wading River Fire Department received a $200,000 grant from Lavalle’s district office today – just enough to cover the cost of upgrading the department’s radio tower at its Hulse Landing Road sub-station, which was constructed more than 30 years ago.

“If we can’t talk to each other, we can’t respond,” said Michael Harrigan, Wading River Fire District Chairman. “This was at the top of our priority list.”

Wading River emergency responders are familiar with the challenges posed by the area’s hilly topography.

“Once you get to a certain point, the signal’s just lost,” said Glenn Erick, a Wading River Fire District Commissioner. “It’s done. The radio stops working. The computer locks up.”

As a Riverhead police officer, Erick knows this from first-hand experience. “When you’re working on flatland, your computer never loses touch with the network,” he said. “You have all the information you need. You can look up an address, you can see how many calls were made there previously.

“When you come down here, you lose all that.”

The upgraded tower at the department’s sub-station will not only improve communication between emergency workers, but it will also bring the tower in compliance with new Federal Communications Commission narrowbanding requirements.

The new tower will also be the department’s first step toward bringing its systems in line with Suffolk County’s new public safety communications standards.

The county is currently in the process of upgrading its systems from analog to digital, but it is only funding communications upgrades to fire districts within the county’s police district. The five East End towns, all of which have their own police departments, must pay for the major communications upgrade themselves.

The grant Wading River received today will only cover a portion of the upgrade’s cost. The board of commissioners estimates that total cost of the upgrade will be upwards of $700,000.

That includes upgrading the department’s primary radio tower at its headquarters on North Country Road, which will be significantly taller (and twice as expensive) as the tower on Hulse Landing Road.

The largest expense, however, will be purchasing new digital radio equipment for all of the department’s volunteer firefighters. Portable radios can cost between $3,000 and $5,000 each, according to Harrigan.

Harrigan hopes to cover the cost of upgrading the department’s communications systems in its next bond initiative, which will be voted on next year. The department’s last bond, which was proposed in 2012 for $4.75 million, failed miserably when it was put out for a public vote.

“We cut back a lot in this proposal,” Harrigan said today. “It’s not grandiose. It’s a lot of basic, obvious things that need repair – windows that need replacement, safety issues that have to be addressed. It’s not a big giant wish list of grandiose plans.”

The department has been doing more outreach in the community this time around as well.

“We took the public inside the facilities, walked them around and showed them our current situation,” Erick said. “You can only put it off for so long. This is the fire department. We provide a service throughout the community. Our facilities have to be kept up with.”

Manorville and Jamesport fire departments must also shoulder the financial burden of upgrades to their own communications systems. Riverhead Fire Department had just upgraded its radio systems to digital before Suffolk County announced its new standards, so it will not need to purchase new equipment.