Emergency radio communication problems resolved

THOMPSON FALLS – The Sanders County Commissioners met with Safety Communications Manager Cody Best Thursday during their regularly scheduled meeting.

Best had been addressing communication issues within Sanders County, particularly at Pat’s Knob, where in May the communication system suffered damages due to ice.

That damage has since been repaired by Best. They have helped maintain and protect the existing microwave radio.

“The work on Pat’s Knob was the biggest thing we’ve done,” Best said. “That was general maintenance and we fixed the microwave radio from being stuck out of the snow bridge we had built.”

Best and his crew used a diamond mesh to build the additional 14-inch roof that now covers the microwave radio that had been exposed. It came from materials already possessed by Sanders County.

“It was what we use for the walking planks up there (at Pat’s Knob), “ Best said.

Best said the material had been used on Pat’s Knob for years and instead of buying new material, he could use material already owned by Sanders County to fix the issue.

The work at Pat’s Knob has not been the only issue the safety communications management team has tackled.

Another issue Best had faced was a generator in Thompson Falls leaking due to lack of a maintenance schedule. The generator had not been maintained under the previous sheriff administration. In fact the generator had actually been turned off because oil leaked onto the parking lot. Best thought it was in the county’s interest to get on a routine schedule for maintenance. If the generator in Thompson Falls had lost power, someone would have manually had to turn it on.

“We want to get signed up on a contract to maintain it,” Best said. “Sometime in the last five years there was a problem with overflowing oil, so it just kept running and overflowing into the parking lot. They just cut the power to it to stop it.”

The generator in Thompson Falls located on Clark’s Peak was serviced with new oil but no new filter because of a power loss. The generator is in working order and will not be a problem if the power were to go out.

The next project was battery backups for the west end’s Green Mountain and Hot Spring’s Oliver. Both locations are regional points within the emergency backup system.

“We didn’t have anything,” Best said. “If the power were to go out, we’d have nothing. It’s enough to run it for eight to ten hours if there is a lot of (radio) traffic or 18 hours if there is little traffic.”

The new batteries provide a safety net in case of an emergency in Sanders County. Best said the battery should only need replaced every five years and charges itself. The additional service tower backups help protect the citizens of Sanders County in an emergency.

Oliver in Hot Springs had additional maintenance when the control board stopped working recently.

“We had a problem with the control board, it’s like the motherboard on a computer. It tells the machine what to do and it’s how we interphase with the system,” Best said. “When we plugged our laptop in, it told us it was an internal software problem. It was $2,500 to replace it. Now we are going into the winter ready.”

As winter comes Best feels the county is ready if power were to go out for any given time. The generators were serviced and battery backups put in place for an emergency situation.