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Board accepts September 911 expenditures; emergency manager reports ongoing siren repairs and testing issues
Summary
Supervisors accepted $36,361.03 in September 911 expenditures and heard that the county's outdoor warning siren repairs are incomplete: radios have been installed in 20 sirens but testing yielded only partial success and staff are awaiting a contractor schedule to complete repairs.
Washington County supervisors voted to accept the 911 expenditures for September totaling $36,361.03 and received an update from Emergency Management on ongoing work to repair the county's outdoor warning siren network.
Emergency Management report: Staff said radios (Midwin radios) had been installed in the county's 20 sirens and that a contractor is expected to return to complete repairs; however, testing of the system returned only six positive results in the most recent test (down from 11 in prior testing), and staff said further troubleshooting and follow-up tests are required. The emergency manager told the board they had provided public outreach (a survey) as part of hazard mitigation planning and would report on survey results when available.
Why it matters: Warning sirens are part of the county's public-safety notification system. Partial system outages reduce the reliability of outdoor warning capabilities and increase reliance on electronic notification systems; the manager reported the county does not currently have the consolidated participation numbers for the electronic notification system and agreed to provide that figure to the board.
Board action: The board moved to accept the September 911 expenditures and instructed staff to continue follow-up with the contractor and return with test results and a timeline for full restoration of siren operations.
Direct quote: The emergency manager reported: "All of all 20 locations. ... Have the radios in them now." She also said, "We tested Monday, and we only got 6 physical results. We've got to go back and do another series of tests to see ... previously, we had 11, and we were troubleshooting that to figure out what's going on." The manager said she would provide participation numbers for the county's electronic notification system at the board's request.
Next steps: Staff will follow up with the siren contractor to set a schedule for completing repairs, perform additional tests and provide the board with electronic notification participation metrics and a timeline to reach full system operations.
