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Regional responders ask Senate for $2.25 million pilot to shore up emergency communications
Summary
Witnesses from Central Vermont told the Senate Committee on Government Operations that decades-old radio infrastructure and interoperability gaps left the region vulnerable during the 2023 floods, and urged the committee to preserve a $2.25 million appropriation in H.935 to pilot a modern P25 public-safety communications system.
The Senate Committee on Government Operations heard from regional emergency responders who urged lawmakers to preserve money in H.935 to fund a pilot public-safety communications system for Central Vermont.
"Three of the eight main towers were compromised for 72 hours," Joseph Allsworth, deputy chief and EMS and deputy emergency management director for Barre and president of Capital Fire Mutual Aid, said in a prepared statement to the committee. Allsworth said that temporary tower outages during the 2023 floods nearly cut off critical communications and that incremental fixes are no longer sufficient.
Keith Cubbins, emergency management and transportation planner at the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, told the committee the Public Safety Communications Task Force has developed a…
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