Santa Cruz Funds New Emergency Network to Eliminate Anaga Dead Zones

Santa Cruz de Tenerife wants to be a safer place, especially for people living in mountain areas like Anaga. The city aims to provide them with an emergency system that connects them directly to Civil Protection, emergency services, local police, and the Natural Environment Unit (UMEN), even in areas with poor phone signal.

To achieve this, the City Council will invest in a new digital communication network for emergencies and early warnings. This network, particularly for Anaga, will include new signal towers, cameras to monitor forests, and weather stations that can be controlled remotely. This will greatly improve how the city watches over these areas, observes potential problems, and coordinates responses during emergencies or warnings.

Additionally, ten new weather stations will be installed across the municipality. These will help with prevention efforts and provide real-time weather updates, making outdoor activities safer.

The new contract, worth almost 200,000 euros, will also allow for replacing and adding more communication devices and signal repeaters. This will boost digital coverage for security services, making it easier for municipal emergency teams to connect effectively.

Mayor José Manuel Bermúdez admitted that "some areas, like Anaga, need better communication systems to help residents in any emergency." Gladis de León, the Councilor for Security, added that one goal of this project is to fix "dead zones" where mobile phone signals don't reach.

In simple terms, while the project involves upgrading the city's communication network, its main purpose is to solve the problem of poor signal coverage for emergency equipment, especially in Anaga.

Right now, the digital radio network has "dead zones" in important locations that are critical during incidents or emergencies. This, combined with new technologies available today, makes this significant investment necessary and strategic.

The project also aims to bring more users onto the network and improve technical quality. This will help all emergency personnel involved in an incident to coordinate better. It will also connect local community groups, with all communications managed from the Local Administration's Operational Coordination Center (Cecopal).

Technically, the contract specifies adding up to four new communication points, each with two channels. This advanced technology, combined with the existing network and new signal repeaters, will allow for new features. These include sending and receiving messages from individual devices, tracking the location of all responders, and automatically sending updates on the operational status of resources.