Morgan County approves $4,818 repair to restore 911 radio backup after communications failure

The Morgan County Commission on May 20 approved a $4,818 purchase to restore backup capability for the county's 911 radio system after a recent communications malfunction.

During the administrator's report, the Administrator said the county experienced a weekend failure of the 911 communications system and that Marshall requested two custom-built power-supply modules to connect local radios to the backup system. "911 communication system malfunctioned, and Marshall is requesting that we get equipment that connects the radios to the backup," the Administrator said.

The units were described as customer‑specification modules that will take additional lead time to be built. The Administrator said the modules will connect the Berkeley Springs tower to the county's legacy PSAP and provide links for two receiver units. Commissioners were told the work-arounds during the outage included use of an adjacent county network for radio traffic.

Commissioner (speaker 4) moved to approve the estimate from Gtech Inc. for the two modules, and the commission voted to authorize payment from the radio tower fund. Chair (speaker 1) said the modules are necessary despite the delay in custom fabrication.

Following the vote, commissioners discussed improving redundancy and notification procedures so that volunteer stations and personnel are reliably alerted during outages. Staff said coordinating use of Washington County's network would require formal approvals and additional coordination with local responders and vendor contacts.

The expense was approved at the meeting; the motion did not include a line-by-line funding reallocation beyond the radio tower fund designation. The commission did not record individual roll-call votes in the transcript.

Next steps: staff will pursue purchase and follow up with inter-county coordination to establish notification and fallback procedures.