Metro Louisville is about to take its final step in developing a $70 million digital communications system meant to bring all its emergency responders under one umbrella.
Construction of three towers, ranging in height from 200 to 500 feet, will begin in April.
By summer 2009, MetroSafe's radio system will allow unlimited communication channels for police, firefighters, paramedics, and nonemergency metro government employees.
Better communication can help police catch criminals, keep firefighters from getting lost in smoky buildings and keep patients alive while being transported to a hospital, first responders say.
The system's radio antennas, microwaves and electronic equipment are now being assembled and tested by Motorola, the city's vendor.
That equipment should begin arriving in Louisville for assembly in late March, said Public Works Director Ted Pullen.
"You don't see it yet, but there's a lot going on, and we are dead on schedule," Pullen said.
The new towers will join nine existing towers that are scheduled for upgrading.
In addition, the former Federal Reserve Bank at 410 S. Fifth Street is being prepared to become the new emergency communications center.All of that work is part of a $22.8 million contract with Motorola, signed last May.
Paul Barth, fire chief of the McMahan Fire Protection District and president of the Jefferson County Fire Chief's Association, said MetroSafe is important because it will allow firefighters to talk with police and Emergency Medical Services personnel. It will also allow suburban firefighters to communicate with metro Louisville firefighters.
"The towers are kind of like the final part, next to putting the radio in our hands," he said. "It's taken some time to get there. But we've all been very patient because we know it'll be a top-of-the-line system."
The first phase started in fall 2005, creating a combined dispatch and call-taking center on Barret Avenue.
The second phase of the project, completed in June 2006, built a unified computer system, allowing dispatchers to talk with all first-responding agencies. It also allows agencies to talk with one another through a "bridge" that is effective, if inefficient.
Barth called those steps "Band-Aids" that still allow for the loss of valuable seconds during an emergency.
The current phase will expand the radio frequency coverage, provide greater clarity and bring nearly unlimited, instantaneous communication between agencies.
MetroSafe Director Doug Hamilton has said the system will save lives by reducing response times and providing consistently clear and uninterrupted talk between users.
But a new radio system won't solve all the problems, said Craig Willman, president of the Louisville Professional Firefighters Union, Local 345.
He said there aren't enough dispatchers, which forces them to work "gross" amounts of overtime.
"While it's exciting to see new things being physically built, I'm more concerned about the inner workings of the people running dispatch," Willman said. "Physical projects aren't the true measure of how these things work."
Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson included $22 million in this year's budget to pay for this third phase of the project.
Motorola was selected as the vendor during a bidding process that culminated in May. The bids were evaluated by a team of department heads led by independent adviser Roger Schipke, a retired senior vice president at General Electric.
Schipke said Motorola will give first responders a state-of-the-art system that will "significantly improve their ability to meet any emergency."