Jul. 3--Wednesday night's thunderstorms didn't cause any major reported damage around the county, but they did knock out power to York County 911's old radio system.

About 8:20 p.m., a dispatcher broadcasted at least twice that, "We momentarily lost all of our radios." Eric Bistline, executive director for the York County Office of Emergency Services, wrote Thursday in an e-mail that the outage was to 911's outgoing Legacy system, which fire departments and EMS agencies still use.

The outage lasted for five minutes at the most, he said.

Fire and EMS are expected to cut-over to the new digital P-25 Trunk system later this month, Bistline said. Police departments in York County cut-over to the new system in the fall. The new radio system was not affected by the storm, Bistline said.

Bistline wrote that the outage "may have been caused by a lightning strike at our Pleasureville Transmission site or by severe rain that caused a microwave fading issue between Pleasureville and our old Pleasant Acres site which is where all of the legacy radio equipment is located, or a combination of both."

Wrightsville Fire Chief Fred Smeltzer said Thursday that, when the outage occurred, members of his fire department temporarily switched to the new radios, and then switched back.

"I am excited about it coming in," Smeltzer said of the new 911 system. "Can't happen soon enough."

He said he recently spoke with Chief Matt Dube from Hellam Township while Dube was in Chester County.

Dube was paged about a call in Hellam Township and called Smeltzer, who was in the township, to help. They were able to talk back and forth on the new radios, Smeltzer said.

Smeltzer also said that, in testing the new radios, he stood inside a chlorine vault at Wrightsville's water plant and spoke with Manchester Township Fire Chief Richard Shank, who was in his office -- a feat that could have never been accomplished with the old radios.

tczech@ydr.com; 771-2033.

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