During any major emergency, the Department and county communication systems will be taxed. The success of the Department and county in responding to the emergency will be measured by our ability to manage communication resources. The Department's resources include voice, radio, CAD, MDT, County-Wide Integrated Radio System (CWIRS), amateur radio, microwave and telephone communications. The success of our response will be directly affected by field personnel and their communications systems. The use of such media shall be restricted to necessary communication and shall be as brief as clarity requires. Personnel shall use plain English for radio communications during mutual aid situations. The use of ten codes and other departmental abbreviations shall be discontinued during this time.
All Sheriff's Stations/Units, the Sheriff's Communications Center and the Emergency Operations Center are equipped with independent emergency transmitting capabilities. This equipment can be used to transmit or receive on the Sheriff frequencies assigned to the field if a system failure disrupts normal communications capabilities. If the use of these emergency systems is required, units shall only use their assigned radio channels. If Sheriff's stations/Units are required to share a radio channel, close coordination between the affected units is vital to avoid interference and ensure maximum effective communications.
If communications are interrupted at the Communications Center, the Stations/Units shall use their emergency transmitting capabilities to transmit messages to and from the Emergency Operations Center on assigned radio channels. All involved units should evaluate the utilization of other communications systems, such as the Disaster Communications Service (amateur radio) and the Emergency Management Information System, to transmit noncritical messages.