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Quinwood 911 tower is now fully operationalOct 20, 2010 (The Register-Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- October 20, 2010 -- A landscape of mountains and valleys makes Greenbrier one of West Virginia's most visually stunning counties. But that topography also makes it one of the most challenging regions to cover with emergency communications service. A gap in that service was closed just two months ago with the construction of a new communications tower near Quinwood in western Greenbrier County. The tower is already making a positive difference in communications between the 911 center and emergency responders in that portion of the county, according to Dan Edwards, director of the Greenbrier County Emergency Communications Center. "They'd had trouble being paged -- toned is the term they use -- and trouble communicating just overall," Edwards noted. "There was just very spotty coverage. Of course, no radio is perfect; you get in a deep enough valley or on the wrong side of the mountain, you'll lose the signal." Built on a one-acre parcel donated to the county by MeadWestvaco, the Quinwood tower is one of seven in the county. The self-supporting structure is 195 feet tall with a 10-by-20-foot building at its base to hold the necessary electronics. In case of an electrical outage, the tower is also equipped with a propane-powered generator that can run its radio transmitters for several days, Edwards said. "It's pretty much a state-of-the-art tower," he said. "We're certainly grateful that MeadWestvaco donated the land. It's really the perfect spot for the tower." At 1,025 square miles, Greenbrier is the state's second-largest county in size, another factor that complicates the effort to provide sufficient emergency communication towers. Edwards believes the trend toward co-locating county antennae on state-constructed towers offers one solution. "The state is building a 300-foot tower on Greenbrier Mountain now, and we are working toward sharing space on that tower," he explained. Construction of the Quinwood tower, including site preparation, infrastructure installation and purchase of electronic equipment, cost in excess of $313,000, according to Edwards. Money for the project came from the 911 center's budget, which is funded via fees charged to the county's telephone customers, both landline and wireless. Cell phone owners pay a $3 per month 911 fee statewide, while each landline in Greenbrier County is assessed a $2 per month fee. "We would like to have had stimulus funds for the project," Edwards said. "It was shovel-ready and we turned in all our paperwork, but it just wasn't in the cards." -- E-mail: [email protected] Text Only Copyright 2010 The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. To see more of The Register-Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.register-herald.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Register-Herald, Beckley, W.Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). |