FANNIN COUNTY, TX- Emergency paging services for many Fannin County fire and police departments were shut off without warning. Advanced communication in Denison closed leaving the departments without pagers. Now another company has stepped in to supply service but officials say this time they want to have a back- up plan in place. Rita Kotey has the story.

Over a month ago the line of communication between dispatchers and Fannin County fire and police departments was cut. The pagers they used to receive information during emergencies were shut off.

Now the departments are back on line with pagers from American Messaging, but they have run into another problem. Some departments can’t get the reception they need.

"Most of the county works great. The rest of the county is iffy at best," Steve Hasten said.

Ravenna fire chief Steve Hasten said there is not a tower in the northern part of the county.

Last month American Messaging installed this temporary tower in Bonham. As a more permanent solution Fannin County emergency management coordinator Darrell Brewer requested that commissioners approve the Ivanhoe tower as the host site for repeaters for all the departments.

"To allow this company to put an antenna on that tower so that the area would be covered," Brewer said.

Brewer said he also wants to establish a secondary way to alert responders. Today commissioners approved to send out bids for the tone alert paging system. Tone will send a recorded message to responders so that they do not have to read the information much like in a text message. That system could cost around $85,000.

Hasten says he is ready for the new tower and for the tone alert paging system to become operational so that they can do more to keep residents safe.

"The voice pagers will be the first step in increasing all communication between the volunteers and the dispatchers in the county. I believe we can put together a long range plan that is going to take multiple years to accomplish that. In the end it will be a good system," Hasten said.

Officials hope to award bids for the tone alert by mid September.