MIDLAND, Texas —
There's a new, operational radio tower in Midland County that's more than just another spot for signals to bounce off of.
It’s part of the Midland County Public Safety Radio Upgrade Project.
“Over five years ago, we regrettably had the mass shooting event in Midland and Odessa, and it really identified the need for this tower and for the interoperability radio solution," said Lori Blong, the mayor of Midland. "This is going to allow our communication between the Sheriff's Office and the other local law enforcement agencies when we have a large event where we need to make sure that we have good communications and so this gives us a regional solution for local law enforcement to be able to work together.”
At the time during the shooting, communications broke down not only because of how isolated of a region Midland-Odessa is but also because so many people were trying to communicate over the radio at once. Now, with this new tower, that won’t happen again according to Mayor Blong.
“This radio tower is going to increase the functionality and the range of the radio solutions that we have for our local law enforcement. It's going to give us greater coverage for the county and for a lot of the oil and gas operations and areas where there may be crime that's taking place," Mayor Blong said. "So, it gives us range, it gives us the ability to communicate more freely and more reliably with all of those local law enforcement agencies.”
The need for something like this in the Midland-Odessa area was acknowledged even by the federal government. That is why they were willing to help with the costs, according to Congressman August Pfluger.
“It’s something that we helped with the funding through the COPS grant, which is a federal program to help our local law enforcement partners do their job," Pfluger said. "We're planning for the worst, but we don't want that to happen, but by doing this, we know now that our agencies can better respond. They can keep public safety at the top of their mind, and we can actually respond quicker and more effectively.”