Ellington

Officials in Hinds County are investigating the cause of a recent failure of its emergency-operations system. Darrel McQuirter, president of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, said April 21 that the same day supervisors voted to terminate a long-standing and controversial agreement with Airwave LLC, the system went down.

"Right now, we're reviewing everything," McQuirter told the Jackson Free Press.

Under a six-year agreement, the county would pay Jackson-based Airwave $4 million to maintain radio-communications equipment, including $70,000 per month for maintenance of equipment and about $30,500 a month for site maintenance.

In addition, the county pays more than $550,000 per quarter for debt service on the existing radio system from the county's E911 fund. At that rate, the fund would have gone into the red by mid August, and the shortfall would have ballooned to $2 million by June 2018.

Supervisors voted during a closed-door executive session to terminate the contract. County officials requested Airwave return the keys to the tower sites the company maintained. Later that evening, when county maintenance personnel made site visits, the workers discovered that several pieces of equipment were not working, McQuirter said.

The blackout meant that emergency dispatchers could not communicate directly with some police officers and firefighters via the radio system; in the case of emergency, those first responders would have had to rely on their cell phones.

When contacted by phone this morning about the contract termination, an Airwave representative, who declined to give his name, said:

"You'd have to talk with the county. They're the ones who cancelled (the contract)."

McQuirter, who represents District 5 on the board and was formerly fire chief for the City of Clinton, said the county has since been able to replace some of the broken and outdated components. In terminating the Airwaves deal, the county was able to slash the $70,000 monthly payment for radio maintenance to about $7,000 per month.

The county's emergency operations systems have been controversial for a number of years now. Government officials have long complained that the outdated radio system represents a public-safety hazard and needs to be replaced. However, until recently, county officials have said the replacing the old system would be too costly.

McQuirter said that the county could consider purchasing a new system within the next two weeks.