By Dennis Hannon, South County Times
St. Louis, Mo. — The new emergency warning system for St. Louis County is working its way through St. Louis County municipalities, minding its manners along the way, and stepping on a minimum of local jurisdictional toes.

The St. Louis County Department of Highways and Traffic is in charge of the project. Technically it holds the right of eminent domain to put the emergency sirens where it sees fit. However, it has begun soliciting the cooperation of local city councils and school boards in selecting sites for new sirens.

Bill Karabas, chief of police in Florissant and chairman of the St. Louis County Emergency Communications Commission, is spearheading the $125 million project. It will upgrade the emergency warning system, along with the Emergency 911 system and the radio communications systems used by police, fire and emergency vehicles throughout the region.

He is accustomed to coordinating a wide variety of needs and opinions from the 91 municipalities and 25 school districts in St. Louis County. That also includes 63 police departments, 43 fire departments and other jurisdictions that have a stake in the placement of the sirens and the deployment of the E911 and radio communications technologies that will follow.

The sirens, which are targeted for full installation by the end of next year, will provide a substantially better emergency warning system for St. Louis County, Karabas said. The 188 new sirens will, for the first time, cover the entire county, including some areas in the southwestern corner that are not now served, Karabas said.

The new sirens will be wire-free, as they are networked by radio and solar powered. They also are independently usable and capable of receiving and amplifying radio messages from police and fire vehicles, enabling officers to broadcast emergency instructions to persons in a specific area. The sirens will direct sound in a full circle, rather than in one direction. This makes the human voice audible and also eliminates the pulsating sound familiar to emergency sirens since the days of air-raid warnings in World War II.

Since the new sirens will be capable of independent operation, they will no longer need to broadcast warnings for weather events – principally tornadoes – that occur in distant parts of the area. Once the new system is in place, a blaring siren will mean a dangerous weather condition has been identified in the immediate area. Those hearing the warning should take shelter.

The project also will include an enhanced E911 system that will be able to identify the location of callers using mobile phones.

The feature of the project that most excites Karabas is the digitized, inter-networked police and fire radio system that will replace analog systems. Police from all regional jurisdictions will be able to communicate directly, point-to-point. However, all existing radio and dispatching equipment must be replaced to implement the system, a process that likely will take three years after bids are accepted later this year, Karabas said.

The project is funded with $125 million to be raised from a 1/16th-cent sales tax approved by St. Louis County voters last November.

Karabas is sure the project will well justify the time, money and effort required to put it in place.

“This is one of the most important things the county has ever gotten involved in,” he said.

Posted with permission of the South County Times.