Emailed on 7/9/14 to Cecil County Executive Tari Moore, Director of Cecil County Department of Emergency Services Richard Brooks, and the Cecil County Council:

I am concerned about the reliability of the emergency communications system in Cecil County. In the recent past I’d heard rumblings about problems with radio communications but several weeks ago I witnessed a failure of the communications system and it seems that communications issues continue this week. Reliable and interoperable radio communications are imperative for public safety and for the safety of our emergency responders. I encourage you to evaluate the current system and address any issues that create opportunities for system failure.

A few weeks ago, on a sunny and clear afternoon, there was an incident on our street that required an ambulance and police response. Once on scene, an emergency responder attempted to reach communications via his radio several times and eventually resorted to using my cell phone to make the call instead. While this incident turned out to be non-life threatening, it could have been–for either a civilian or a first responder.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be an isolated incident. Just this week I’ve learned that there were county-wide outages on Monday and Tuesday.

I’m sure you agree that there is little more important than the safety of our residents and of those aiding residents in an emergency. Communications failures have repeatedly been identified as contributing factors to casualties during emergencies and disasters, including 9/11 and Yarnell Hill, and everything possible must been done to prevent such tragedies from occurring in our county.

This wasn’t the only instance of radio interoperability. Watch this report from WMAR