Tonini: Ice storm showed need for satellite phones in every county
By Jack Brammer – jbrammer@herald-leader.com
FRANKFORT — This winter’s ice storm — the most catastrophic natural disaster to hit Kentucky since the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 — underscored the need for at least one satellite telephone in every county, Adjutant General Edward W. Tonini said Monday.
“In much of the state we lost the means to communicate,” Tonini told members of a House legislative committee in a presentation about the state’s response to the January storm, which knocked out power to more than 770,000 customers and is blamed for at least 36 deaths.
Tonini said the hardest hit areas of Western Kentucky lost all means of communications.
“In many cases, the total extent of our emergency eyes and ears were a couple of satellite radios and a few ham radio operators operating on batteries,” he said.
The state’s initial response was “measured and somewhat tempered” because of the limited communication, said the general.
The poor communication also delayed the notification of some National Guard members, whom Gov. Steve Beshear activated, Tonini said.
Beshear initially sent 1,600 members of the Guard’s Rapid Response Force to the hardest hit areas. In all, 4,600 Guard members were mobilized in the largest state call-up of its forces in the state’s history.
Tonini said after Monday’s meeting of the House Seniors, Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee that he did not know if satellite telephones in every county would have saved lives during the storm.
“But that would be a prudent thing,” he said. “It would have given us better information sooner … and maybe we could have given people more relief more expeditiously.”
Tonini didn’t readily know how many Kentucky counties have satellite phones or how much they would cost. He said the state should pick up the bill.
Satellite phones are a type of mobile phone that connects to orbiting satellites instead of land-based cell phone towers. Their coverage may include the entire earth or a specific region.
Old handsets can cost about $200, but the newest ones are quite expensive. Some costs several thousand dollars. Warm weather after the storm helped communication tremendously, Tonini said. “If zero degree temperature had persisted for another week, we really could have been in trouble.”
Filed Under: Featured • State Government • Steve Beshear
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You might want to add Satellite based GPS tracking to first responder state vehicles. This way The Emergency Operations Center in the Transportation building could route the nearest staff and vehicle(s) to the incident site
Sat phones cost $500 each. Add a monthly usage fee plus a per minute talk fee and the expense climbs. Then you must have 80% outdoor sky opening. These phones do not work indoors except in unusual circumstances.
Sat phones leave many unanswered questions, especially when they might be needed once a year or once every three or four years.
That monthly is expensive on the satellite phones also. Why not Ham or amateur radio, cheap and most counties have or can put up a 2 meter repeater”battery Back up” Tech license is not hard to get and if you get someone to get general license you can talk about anywhere anytime.
I think nurses at Prestonburg Hospital get their technician license. You can talk on Two Meter all the way from Pikeville to Lexington now, or used to be able to. I think Pike County let their repeater go dead and never fixed it.