Fire Stations Become Emergency Internet and Electricity Hubs

RICHMOND -- Being able to provide a system that ensures lines of communications can remain open for first responders and lets residents know there’s a place they can go to access shelter and reach others when they experience a widespread electrical or internet outage brought local, state and federal officials to Richmond Volunteer Fire and Rescue Friday.

“It’s important to make this organic in the community,” Attorney General Andy Wilson said. “It’s up to everyone to take this message out to the folks who live in this area and let them know that if there’s a catastrophic failure of communications or electricity, they can come to the firehouse. They can come here, and they can get their diabetes medication refrigerated and they can get on the internet.”

The project will bring $300,000 in grant money from the Department of Homeland Security and the Ohio Emergency Management Agency to the county. Each of five locations will get a Generac generator and a Starlink internet system, which will provide Wi-Fi connections. Richmond is the first to have one of the installations.

Other locations where the equipment will be installed include fire stations in East Springfield, Knox Township, Wells Township and Hillndale in Steubenville Township. Richmond-based TS Electric is handling the installations.

Wilson, like all of the other officials who attended, said the decision to set up the state’s pilot system in Jefferson County was made largely through the tenacity of Terry Bell.

A representative of the Jefferson County Township Association who served for 12 years as a township official, Bell began pressing for a way to help people who lose power for an extended period of time after he faced a personal crisis more than one year ago. That was after heavy winds associated with severe thunderstorms on April 29, 2025, left 34,711 county residents without power for as long as five days.

A diabetic, Bell said he had $500 worth of medication that would have gone bad without proper refrigeration. His son was not affected by the power outage, Bell explained, and he took his medication to his house for safekeeping. A conversation between them lit up what Bell described as the proverbial light bulb in his head.

“My son said, before you go home, I have a spare generator and I’ll bring it to your house,” Bell said. “That light bulb what off -- that’s what I need, generators, and where do I find the money?”

That led to phone calls, emails and other discussions with officials from all levels of government, including Wilson, who at the time was the director of the state’s department of public safety; Jefferson County EMA officials, including Director John Parker and Grant Coordinator Brenda Burkey; the Jefferson County commissioners and others.

Wilson said the idea for a similar project came as the result of another storm -- Hurricane Helene, which hit the western side of North Carolina in September 2024. He said Gov. Mike DeWine sent a team there about a month after the storm to talk with officials and see what lessons they had learned. The overriding concerns, they explained, were the catastrophic failure of communication capabilities and electricity.

With no access to cell service or power and with numerous roads blocked, many residents had no way of communicating with loved ones or others. That led Starlink founder Elon Musk to send Starlink units that provide satellite-based internet connections to the affected areas. They were placed at fire departments and offered a way for people to become connected.

Ohio was looking for a place to set up a pilot project with generators and internet access for use in emergencies when Bell called.

“That’s where this project actually came together,” Wilson said. “The two ideas of ‘This is what we want to do’ and ‘This is what we need in our community.’ We worked together to cut through a bunch of red tape. The wheels of government grind fairly slowly at times, but I’m telling you, this was like with the little engine that could. Terry just kept going and going and going and calling and calling and calling. He stayed on top of it -- that’s what local leaders do, and as a result of his tenacity and as a result of the governor’s passion for making sure what happened in western Carolina didn’t happen here, we were able to leverage the dollars.

“Hopefully, we will never have to use it, but if that day comes, and if that crisis arises, I am confident that the people who live in this area will be better served because of the leadership and passion of the people who want to take care of them -- and the folks like you, who do the job day in and day out. We’re incredibly proud of this,” he added.

In addition to ensuring there’s a place for residents of an affected area to turn, the system will help first responders do their jobs.

“It gives first responders the ability during extended power outages to be able to serve in their community and to help with medical issues and anything they need by having these capabilities and being able to have electricity at their stations for their medical equipment and things they need to charge. In today’s world, everything is pushed through computers, so they can actually, with Starlink, which is a mobile unit too, they can have them on site to be able to push information to hospitals if they have a patient who’s in critical condition or they need to get information out to somebody,” Parker explained.

“The second side of it is that the generator also supplies power to the station that can serve as an emergency location during an extended power outage,” he added.

Richmond Fire Chief Eric Jeffers, county Health Commissioner Andrew Henry, county Commissioner Eric Timmons, state Rep. Ron Ferguson, R-Wintersville and state Sen. Brian Chavez R-Marietta all thanked Bell for his efforts to see the project through. U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, also thanked Bell and added the project was an example of what can be accomplished when all levels of government work together to solve an issue.

Bell was proud to see the installations begin and he thanked everyone who made the project possible.

“It’s easy to say that when you surround yourself with knowledgeable, good-hearted and helping people, that success comes easy,” Bell said. “It takes time. It was 2025 when I started looking for money, and here we are today in 2026. I was taught as a youngster by my parents that whatever you do, do it to the extreme best of your ability, and always do it for other people. Shortly after I became a township trustee, I figured it out -- they were right. Trustees work for other people. I was fortunate that everybody at the state level that I have come in contact with, I classify them as friends because of all of the phone calls and all of the hard work they did on my behalf and on John Parker’s behalf. That’s why we’re here today.”