MINOT – The Ward County Commissioners voted at their meeting Tuesday to approve a loan to communities for a new outdoor warning sirens emergency system across the county.
Kelly Haugen, emergency management director, has been trying to transition emergency systems across the county for outdoor warning sirens and vehicle radios from Very High Frequency, which is the range of radio waves from 30 to 300 megahertz, to an 800 megahertz system, which is Ultra High Frequency. The VHF system costs about $76,000 a year. UHF is more.
“As we’ve discussed in the past, with the transition to an 800 megahertz radio system, with that system upgrade it is going to affect the outdoor warning sirens,” said Haugen. “The outdoor warning sirens are currently under VHF. To upgrade them to work with the 800 system, each siren is going to have to have new equipment put in that will probably cost $3850.”
The 9-1-1 committee recommended a zero-interest loan be offered to communities to pay for the upgrade, and to have the communities pay the loan back no later than December 31, 2025. Transitioning all 30 outdoor sirens would cost approximately $115,500, which is already accounted for in the operations or depreciation budgets, according to Haugen.
“It wouldn’t increase taxes or any of that,” said Haugen. “Since that budget is a split budget between the county and the City of Minot, this proposal would also have to be brought before the Minot City Council.”
“Burlington is probably going to downsize, it looks like,” said Commissioner Jim Rostad. “So, the actual number of sirens to be replaced should be less than 30.”
The commissioners unanimously voted to approve the loan. They also voted unanimously to let communities know applications are open for American Rescue Plan Act dollars for their radio systems with a deadline of April 30. Haugen hopes to have all radio systems transitioned by the end of the year.
“Not all the state is transitioning over, it’s coming in waves. A portion of the state isn’t going to go over until 2025,” said Haugen. “Some of our neighboring counties are going over in 2024.”
