The catastrophic flooding experienced by Delaware County on August 12–13, 2026, caused unprecedented damage to critical public safety communications infrastructure at the Delaware County Public Safety radio communications tower and equipment site located near Eighth Street and Sampson Avenue in Muncie.
This facility is a critical component of Delaware County’s emergency communications network, supporting fire, law enforcement, emergency medical services, emergency management, and other public safety operations throughout the county.
Floodwaters entered the facility and severely damaged critical radio communications equipment, hardware, and connection systems. The damage resulted in the loss of operational capability at the site and disrupted the county’s VHF radio system.
Delaware County has identified a temporary solution to restore VHF radio service by utilizing another existing tower location. The county is currently awaiting delivery of the equipment necessary to implement this temporary solution. Once the equipment arrives, the county anticipates that the temporary VHF system can be brought back online within a couple of days.
This temporary measure will provide an important short-term restoration of VHF communications; however, it does not replace the need to permanently restore the Sampson Avenue facility. The loss of the Sampson Avenue site continues to reduce communications capacity, redundancy, and resilience, and has resulted in the loss of critical infrastructure that must ultimately be replaced.
Preliminary estimates indicate that up to $2.5 million may be required to fully restore the facility and its communications capabilities. The $2.5 million estimate includes the construction of a new/replacement building, replacement of damaged communications equipment and infrastructure, installation and configuration, restoration of connectivity, testing, system integration, and other work necessary to return the site to reliable operational status.
No separate funding request for the replacement building is being made. The cost of the new/replacement building is included within the $2.5 million preliminary estimate.
Because this facility supports essential public safety communications, expedited State and/or Federal assistance is urgently needed.
