By CRAIG FREILICH

CANTON -- St. Lawrence County Emergency Services is incorporating new technology into its operations and staff are being trained to use it for improved communications.

One system staff recently received training on is an improved way to request assets from the state during times of emergency.

“It would be anything from generators to sandbags, anything the state has stockpiled” for distribution in an emergency, said county Emergency Services Director Michael Lecuyer.

The nearest stockpile location, Lecuyer said, is in Plattsburgh, where he and other people authorized to use the system can request emergency equipment such as “light towers, generators, things we might not have on hand,” he said.

The web-based system is an improvement over the old system where local personnel would have to fill out a form, fax it to Albany, “and wait for a response,” Lecuyer said.

“Now it’s a web-based program where we can make a request online to the state operations center.”

He said several local emergency personnel attended training on the system last month.

It is part of NY Responds, an enhanced incident management system provided at no cost to localities, a press release from the state said. It will enable both local governments and state agencies to submit and share disaster-related information ranging from incident reporting and resource requests to real-time tracking of assets and weather conditions.

The aim of the new system, a press release from the state said, is “to improve coordination and cooperation during a disaster or emergency.”

Meanwhile equipment for St. Lawrence County’s installation of a new state emergency services communications system, Mutualink, is due to be set up this month.

Lecuyer said the state is just now rolling out the system, a new secure communications radio link.

“It’s a redundant form of communications,” Lecuyere said, that will have the capability to connect with state emergency services in Albany and other stations on the network.

Lecuyere says he and members of the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office and of New York Responds, the name of the new system, will decide on how the local setup of the system will be done.

Mutualink is described as new technology that integrates telephone, radio, video and file sharing into one interoperable application. This system enables local emergency staff to share information in real time with the state and other counties.