During severe thunder storms or other emergency situations the dispatcher will
sound one long alert tone and announce "Attention all companies, Bucks
County is now operating under storm emergency conditions." Under these
conditions the dispatcher may when his/her best judgement indicates, reduce
the normal response to incidents to one station responses. On local alarms it
will be necessary for apparatus to reduce radio traffic to responding and
available. No other transmission will be necessary unless a priority situation
arises. On tactical and box responses it will only be necessary for all
apparatus to go responding and only the first unit going on location. Radio
priority will be given to companies operating on confirmed tactical and box
assignments and companies operating on these incidents should keep radio
usage to priority messages only. While operating under these conditions,
companies receiving multiple local alarms, a Chief officer will be given the
information via their zone frequency, and may direct the units from there
following storm policy. All radio traffic between companies should be
conducted on portable radios utilizing the fireground band whenever possible.
When the situation has cleared Bucks County will announce the emergency
condition is cleared and companies may return to normal operating
procedures.
