The Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance recently awarded $4.2 million to communities around the state for the replacement of outdated radios. Among the communities in this area receiving new radios were Onalaska, West Salem and Bangor.

The radios will enable better, more reliable communications between emergency response agencies at critical times and during large-scale disasters where response teams from different jurisdictions are working together.

“Basically, this came about because of 9-11 when the fire departments and police departments couldn’t talk to one another,” said Greg Peterson of P&H Sevices in Bangor. Peterson is responsible for installing the new radios in municipal vehicles throughout La Crosse County.

“What the state is doing,” said Onalaska Fire Chief Don Dominick, “is taking a look at how you can work together during some kind of a disaster. They’re trying to get everybody in the state on the same frequency.”

Onalaska received four radios — two mobile radios and two portable radios. “The mobile radios installed in vehicles are kind of like the old CB radios,” Dominick explained, “while the portables are more like walkie talkies.”

West Salem is receiving one portable radio and one mobile radio. “The portable one will go to the police department,” Village Administrator Teresa Schnitzler said. “The other will go in my office because we need a decent base communicating system for our emergency operations center.”

Schnitzler added that in the event of a major disaster, the senior center upstairs in the village hall would be turned into a command center. “We tried it downstairs during an exercise and it was just too crowded,” she said.

According to Bangor Trustee Greg Peterson, the radio Bangor received is probably going to public works director Steve Baker. “I believe he’s going to keep it in his truck,” Peterson said. Communities had to pay 25 cents on the dollar for the radios they received.

Peterson said Bangor’s new unit was worth close to $1,000, but with a rebate the cost to the village was only about $125.

The funds for purchasing the radios have come from the federal Homeland Security Department. The state’s short-term goal is to make sure all public safety agencies have access to common mutual aid channels during a major emergency.

The new radios have a minimum of 48 channels — as opposed to as few as one channel on some of the police, fire and rescue units previously in use.

The long-term goal is to have all the radios in the state compatible. The name for the resulting statewide network would be the Wisconsin Interoperability System for Communication (WISCOM).

“Right now, all the radios that are out there will have to be compliant by 2013,” Dominick said. “This (the four radios Onalaska was awarded) will get us fully compliant.”

Dominick noted that acquisition of compatible radios will also help with the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System being set up across Wisconsin.

That system, which is being used in other states, is a mutual aid measure that may be used for deploying fire, rescue and emergency medical services personnel in a multi-jurisdictional and/or multi-agency response.

Participation in the mutual aid program is voluntary, with equipment, personnel or services provided at no charge between municipalities. Expenses recovered from the responsible parties are equitably distributed and responding emergency personnel remain employees of their initial department or agency.

“If, for example, there is a house fire on the south side of Onalaska, the closest station in La Crosse might respond, too,” Dominick said. “Or if there’s an incident at the airport, we might be called out there. We’re trying to utilize resources wisely and in ways that will help the taxpayer.”

Although the MABAS system is not set up in La Crosse County yet, but Dominick noted there will be a MABAS meeting on Jan. 7 where officials from Madison will explain how the system will be implemented.