COUNTY EMA GOES INTO ACTION WHEN PHONES GO DOWN

When the phones went down in the city on Friday afternoon the hardest working man in the county was contacted. Tom Kelley, Director of the Lorain County Office of Emergency Management and Director of Homeland Security, was contacted by the Lorain County Sheriff’s Department at 5:15 informing him of the situation. Kelley responded to the Sheriff’s Department in the county’s communication truck by 5:30 and met with Capt. Resendez to monitor the situation. The county 9-1-1 system never went down and the phone lines at the Sheriff’s Department as well as Kelley’s offices were not affected.

"Cell phones either didn't work or were overloaded because people turned to using them. Internet service was affected also. Ohio State Patrol post 47's new radio system (MARCS which stands for Multi-agency radio communications system) was down because it requires T1 internet connections to work. They had to rely upon the Medina County post to relay traffic."

"We had 2 hand held satellite phones and one fixed unit in the county's Emergency Operations Center which still did work - and those were made available to the Sheriff's Department if needed. Amateur radio operators were available to deploy to emergency organizations if the 9-1-1 had gone down to rely calls - but they weren't needed."

Windstream has stated that a fiber optic line was cut on accident and that the service was restored within an hour.