Coast Guard loses radio contact with vessels on our waters again
Posted May 21, 2015 12:38 pm.
Last Updated May 21, 2015 12:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VICTORIA (NEWS1130) – Coast Guard contact with all boats on our waters hit a snag again this morning because of a 20-minute outage.
It’s the second time this week communication has been lost and the union says officers aren’t able to respond to distress calls or get out critical information.
But Greg Lick, the director of general operations for the Canadian Coast Guard says there is a huge backup network when something like this happens.
“People on the water — whether it’s coast guard vessels… the bases on the land or a whole network of all the other vessels on the water — are always, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, listening for distress calls on those particular channels.”
He says the problem is because of old technology, so the priority will be updating that system to provide more reliable service to mariners.
This comes after the federal government’s decision to close the Vancouver communication centre and move everything to Victoria.