If you’ve vacationed in the Adirondacks you’ve likely
seen pay phones throughout. The economic viability of the quarter-eating telephones
speaks to their absolute necessity – vast swaths of the 9,300 square mile Park
are without cell coverage.
As quaint as that may be for those who pine for the
“good old days” and the lack of connectedness to the outside world, most of
humanity has in rather short time (two decades?) evolved as quickly as our
technology, finding absolute reliance on cellular to communicate with friends and
work, be in the know about what’s happening in the world, and be connected when
danger presents.
While one can certainly survive without the need to
chat on the phone or browse the web (you are, after all, on vacation in a wild
area), it’s that last point that’s the issue: When emergencies happen people
need tools that have become a part of everyday existence – the ability to call
911, warn others, or receive text messages or app notifications from government
entities.
You can achieve almost none of that in the Adirondacks,
a place where Mother Nature can behave in extremes (extreme cold, snow, and terrain)
and so can mankind (extreme sports like snowmobiling and mountain climbing) and
there is always potential for extreme outcomes (natural disasters and
injuries).
Under such circumstance, the silence afforded by
the lack of communications technology can put people at risk.
Residents of and visitors to the Adirondacks saw
that in spades recently.
From Halloween into November 1st, we here
in Western New York had 60 mile per hour winds and over an inch of rain. The storms
strengthened by time they reached the North Country and areas of the Park saw
3.5 to 5.5 inches of rain in short order. It was disastrous, wiping out hiking
trails, flooding communities, and washing out roads. Things were so bad that
the Governor declared a state of emergency and the DEC advised against hiking
the backcountry for more than 2 weeks after the event.
Because of the inability of weather apps to warn
people of the growing crisis and government apps to tell people of washed out
roads and waterways exceeding their banks, numerous folks were trapped -- you may have seen daring rescue footage on
the Mohawk River just outside of the Park’s southern border. Others became veritable
castaways, shutoff from access to civilization as portions of Route 30 ended up
underwater and roads like Big Moose were washed out (in either case, to get
around those spots could literally take you an hour-and-a-half to two off
course).
While this was happening realize that those who do
the saving, first responders, were faced with similar communications issues.
Not only do they lack the cell access, but their two-way radios are have many
blind spots.
That’s an especially pressing issue in the Central
Adirondacks from Old Forge to Raquette Lake where firefighters and EMTs have complained
about the inability to talk to dispatch and others on or around scene due to
the mountainous terrain. In the past, this has made fighting structure fires
very dicey and, in this recent event, it made it difficult to convey what was happening
and where.
In response to all of these issues, public safety and
town officials throughout the region have been, for years now, trying to secure
a communications tower in Inlet that would allow virtually seamless public safety
transmissions and at the same time afford cell coverage in previously unserved
areas.
But, it’s been a tough go, as there have been two
significant hurdles…funding and the APA.
Despite the glaring necessity of a tower, those
communities have struggled to secure funding for the $500,000 project. Mind you,
a state that throws $750 million at Elon Musk’s enterprises and millions at
renaming the Tappan Zee bridge in honor of the Governor’s father somehow couldn’t
find veritable pocket change to protect residents, tourists and their
protectors. Those behind the project had to resort to Go Fund Me-style
panhandling, private grant acquisition, and funding from the feds -- they’ve
almost reached their goal.
At the same time, they’ve had to go back and forth
with the Adirondack Park Agency which oversees development of the Park. While
the APA is critical in maintaining the natural wonder of the Adirondacks, this
is a case where they’ve gone overboard in devaluing the needs of the people. Under
their auspices, towers need to be “substantially invisible” and not intrusive
upon the environment and officials have been going back and forth with the APA
about design and location for some time. And they need to because with the
line-of-sight communications had by VHF, UHF, and microwave communications you
need height on towers.
The struggle to put up one simple tower has served
as a wake-up call for other communities throughout the Park, which now second-guess
their interest and ability to eliminate radio and cell silence in their
territories despite the harm it puts people in.
Could this most recent storm serve as a wake-up
call, a catalyst for the State and the APA to change their ways and encourage and
help communities to erect communications towers?
One should hope so, because property, infrastructure
and lives have been in the past and will be lost in the future. And, in many
cases, it’s all preventable by simply opening the lines of communications.
From the 11
November 2019 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News
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