Grant funds emergency antenna

By Derek Gentile, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Article Last Updated: 12/26/2007 03:04:57 AM EST


Wednesday, December 26
SANDISFIELD — A $42,125 grant from the Department of Homeland Security will enable the town to improve its emergency communications systems next year.
Fire Chief Ralph Morrison said last week that a majority of the funding will pay for a radio antenna atop Sandisfield Fire Station Number Two, located on Route 57.

Some of the money will also go to install a self-contained generator in Fire Station Number One on 79 South Main St., which will be used as a community center in an emergency, said Morrison.

The antenna will enable firefighters living in more remote portions of the town to better receive emergency tones from the county dispatch center in Pittsfield.

There are times, said Morrison, that weather conditions and geography conspire to mute the dispatch signals. This antenna, he said, will hopefully reduce that problem. At 52 square miles, Sandisfield is the largest town by area in the Berkshires. It is also one of the most sparsely settled.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. John Olver, D-Amherst, explained that the grant is part of the federal Department of Homeland Security's Assistance to Firefighters program.

A total of $490 million


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has been awarded this year. But, the spokesman said, the grant is extremely competitive, as fire departments and emergency medical teams from cities, tons and villages all compete for the money.
Olver, in a prepared statement, pointed out that these grants "are critical to smaller communities with limited resources. Whenever I meet with town officials, the message is always the same: Municipal needs always outstrip individual towns' budgets."

Morrison said last week that he hopes to begin these projects by the beginning of 2008. But his plans are contingent on when the town is awarded the funding.

"Obviously, I have to get the money before I start," he said.

Morrison credited his brother, Police Chief Michael Morrison, Emergency Management Director John Burrows and Burrows' wife Kathy Burrows, for assisting in writing the grant.