A town hall meeting for emergency responders was held Thursday night in Harlan with information on a new emergency response network. The FirstNet Network town hall meeting took place at the Harlan Fire Hall. The event was hosted by the Shelby County Emergency Management Agency, with  Shawn Wagner from the Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications System Board (ISICSB) conducting the meeting. Bob Seivert, Shelby County Emergency Management Coordinator, says the network is being established to help emergency responders communicate with one another.

“This is the Nation’s answer to interoperability issues between agencies. This project will provide an infrastructure for the sharing of emergency date between emergency response agencies.” He says the current system works in smaller counties but there are issues. “But what we want to be able to do is we want to leverage the technology that you see being developed on smartphones and different vendors such as Verizon and AT&T. We want to be able to use that technology to save lives.”

FirstNet is hoping to partner with local and state governments and private partnerships to build the network out for the entire country. Seivert says the network is in the beginning stages. “The federal government has been looking at this for several years and it is to the point now where the concept and perception is being pushed out to the public so we can gain enough support to tell our legislators this is indeed something that is valuable and they should look at funding.”

Seivert says there is nothing concrete yet but this is a good way for the general public to learn about FirstNet and what it can do for local responders. The Iowa Statewide Interoperable Communications System Board is continuing to host town hall meetings in the state of Iowa with the goal to hold one in each county. If you would like more information on the FirstNet network, contact your local County Emergency Management Agency.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)