Power to mountain top communications services on Mount Kobau was severed over the Christmas holidays, leading to a loss of primary 911 communications to a number of Similkameen volunteer fire departments.
It is believed that a storm on December 22 knocked a couple of trees onto the lines, bringing them down. An emergency backup generator kicked in, which allowed 911 communications to continue until Friday, December 28, when the generator’s fuel ran out. The tower remained out of service until 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 2, after a helicopter flew fuel and service personnel up to Mount Kobau to get the generators restarted.
On January 4, power was once again reported to be down at the Kobau site.
“No alarms were communicated to the regional district,” reported RDOS Emergency Services Supervisor Dale Kronebusch, who also noted that the regional district’s antennae are located on Global and Telus towers at Kobau through a verbal agreement.
“There are loose ends to tie up,” he added, indicating that the regional district would work to correct the problem once the current issue was corrected. (The changes to the regional district’s 911 communications currently being contemplated by the RDOS board will also have warnings for such events as power outages as integral parts of the system, Kronebusch said.)
At least nine fire halls were affected by the signal loss, including Naramata, Princeton, Tulameen, Hedley, Oliver, Osoyoos, Anarchist Mountain, Willowbrook and Keremeos.
Under the former Penticton 911 diapatch system, a backup communication service was available through Penticton’s former ability to switch channels to a Beaconsfield Mountain tower, which would allow the regional district’s western departments the ability to continue running on the initial dispatch system.
“Public safety was never jeopardized,” noted Kronebusch, as departments still had a backup system (via telephone lines) to use.
In Keremeos, dispatch communications continued via phone lines. Page outs were still heard, as was dispatch, but local firefighters could not use the radio link to communicate back without use of a land line or cell phone.