This is ridiculous and rife with the potential to cost firefighters their lives:
- The city has spent nearly $23 million on a new digital communications system that still doesn’t work after more than five years — a shortcoming back in the spotlight following a federal report that criticizes the Chicago Fire Department for not having enough radios during a December fire that killed two firefighters.
Yet as costs mount and test after test fails, there is still no firm timeline on when the system will be up and running.
“Sometime in 2012,” said Roderick Drew, a spokesman for the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, when asked Friday how soon the 3,000 new radios would come online.
Ten years since 9/11 and we still can't talk to firefighters in the event of a disaster. Firefighters can't even talk to each other in many cases in the same building for pete's sake.