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Chilton County emergency response personnel unveiled the county’s new incident response trailer on Aug. 16. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISER)

Chilton County delegates and emergency personnel gather in front of the new Chilton County Incident Response Trailer on Aug. 16. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISER)

Chilton County E911 Director Trae Caton speaks to the crowd at the unveiling event. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISER)

The Chilton County Incident Response Trailer offers state-of-the-art technology on board that will directly assist emergency personnel when responding to scenes. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISER)

Chilton County Sheriff John Shearon speaks about the new Chilton County Incident Response Trailer at the unveiling event on Aug. 16. (CAREY REEDER | ADVERTISER)

By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

Chilton County delegates and emergency personnel unveiled the newest pieces of equipment that will go a long way in protecting and serving the citizens of Chilton County and the surrounding area. The new Chilton County Incident Response Trailer was unveiled at an event at the Chilton County Jail on Aug. 16 to showcase it and all of its capabilities.

A command trailer, or incident response trailer, is used by agencies on site at emergency situations such as a natural disaster, dramatic accident or a search and rescue. It offers a home base for the agency while they are on site, and most offer technology capabilities that help make things easier on the emergency personnel. The old command trailer for Chilton County was essentially a trailer with a bathroom and a table inside.

The need for a new incident response trailer in the county grew substantially over the last five to 10 years as technology advancements were made. Chilton County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Nic Bolton was well aware of this, and as he and others were planning the EMA budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, he was determined to get something one way or another. He budgeted $100,000 for a new trailer, but did not have to dip into those funds hardly at all to make the final purchase.

Bolton and Major Ken Harmon with the Chilton County Sheriff’s Office started working on a grant with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its Homeland Security Grant Program through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency serves as the State Administrative Agency for the HSGP, and the purpose of the program is to “provide funds to eligible entities to support state, local, tribal and territorial efforts to prevent terrorism and other catastrophic events and to prepare the nation for the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk to security of the United States,” according the program’s website. The grants are highly competitive with numerous agencies across the state bidding for the funds.

Bolton and Harmon built the application and worked on the specifications of it, looking back on incidents and scenes they have been on in the past that a trailer present would have been beneficial. They considered what technology needed to be on the trailer too, and collaborated with Chilton County E911 Director Trae Caton and Chilton County Sheriff John Shearon to ensure all emergency agencies would have everything they needed aboard the trailer.

“We are so thankful to have such a (great piece of equipment),” Caton said. “It may not look more than just a trailer with an awning and tower on the outside, but it has a tremendous amount of technology that has been poured into it.”

Bolton said the application process for the grant was simple through ALEA, and the agency had representatives available for questions or conversations throughout the process. Bolton took advantage of that and had several discussions with ALEA to see what information would be best to place in certain areas of the application and more.

“It had a lot of work and a lot of discussion that went into (getting the trailer), but the people who we worked with on it were so professional, they know what they are doing and they made it very smooth,” Bolton said.

In the end, the county was awarded a $180,000 grant through the ALEA Homeland Security Grant that covered a large majority of the trailer’s cost. The total cost for the trailer was $202,000, which meant Bolton had to dip just a little into the funds he had already budgeted in and set aside for the trailer, leaving a large portion of it untouched and available for other things.

The trailer comes with an array of state-of-the-art technology that will give responders a whole new way to assist in emergency situations. The trailer has its own network system, and through firewalls and other technology, the emergency personnel can take the trailer anywhere they go and be able to connect to their computers, dispatch equipment and radios to the network. The trailer can link up the responders P25 radio system to increase their connectivity to be able to connect to whoever, whenever. It can also patch together multiple radio frequencies onto one, which is important when working with other agencies.

“One of the huge downfalls in disasters today, and we see it time and time again, emergency responders were not able to communicate with one another, or this agency,” Caton said. “What this trailer allows is for us to take a lot of that out and eliminate that by having a system that works with other agencies where it will take the technology inside the trailer and connect them together to make things work.”

Preventing those shortcomings of communication between emergency personnel could mean life or death in certain situations. Another example of how the trailer could be utilized is during search and rescue situations, the trailer can display where parties have and have not searched on the monitors mounted to the outside of the trailer.

“This is something that Chilton County has never had before, and we have never had the capabilities of doing,” Caton said. “This in conjunction with our P25 system is something that will be a game changer for our county … It puts us leaps and bounds, in my opinion, above others when it comes to public safety and the commitment this county is making to our citizens and those who choose to visit here.”

Once Chilton County is assured safe and emergency services are not needed anymore, personnel will deploy teams along with the incident response trailer to neighboring counties to help out as needed. For instance, central Alabama has been hit hard the past few years with tornados, so with this trailer, emergency personnel in Chilton County will not hesitate to send it to assist in the future. Caton said the county is fortunate to house the trailer in such a central part of the state, and it will hopefully make a significant impact in Chilton County and the surrounding areas as well.

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