Cleburne County Office of Emergency Management receives $10,000 from BHP Billiton

Representatives from the Cleburne County Office of Emergency Management has accepted a $10,000 donation from BHP Billiton Petroleum to assist with the purchase of new communications equipment for volunteer fire departments in the county.

“This new communications equipment will ensure that volunteer fire departments out in the county can receive emergency signals during a disaster in a timely and uninterrupted manner,” Greg Carr, director of Cleburne County OEM.

The Federal Communications Commission has required that volunteer fire departments, many of which serve rural areas, upgrade to narrow-banding communications equipment. Narrow-banding equipment is the change of bandwidth that channels must operate on to receive emergency signals.

“We greatly respect the important responsibility that the Office of Emergency Management and Judge Jerry Holmes have in helping the residents of Cleburne County during emergencies, and we hope this will make their jobs easier in protecting our fellow Arkansans,” said Danny Games, external affairs manager at BHP Billiton.