An ambulance crew trying to report a minor car accident Monday in front of the Brewer fire station couldn’t radio an emergency dispatcher a mile away because the signal apparently was obstructed between the two locations.

A connection was made by telephone. No one involved in the accident required hospitalization, but the incident raised bigger issues about emergency communications in the area.

With nearly $1.2 million in federal funds expected to flow to Penobscot County communities to help prepare for a worst-case terrorism scenario, improving electronic communications may need to be at the top of the spending list, officials said this week.

Approximately one-third of that money is earmarked for a regional pool of funds to be used by the county, and another $456,845 is to go to front-line first responders in various towns in the county.

Bangor, with its international airport, two hospitals and other infrastructures, is granted an additional $296,312 in Department of Homeland Security funds as part of a high-risk designation for the city.

Tom Robertson, director of the Penobscot County Emergency Management Agency, expects to review wish lists from local communities.

He plans on asking representatives of the stakeholders – fire and police departments, emergency response teams, ambulances and others – to meet to come up with solutions.

Communications already appears to be a front-runner in the discussions. Taking a lead in the dialogue, Gov. John Baldacci is asking local officials to apply at least half of the homeland security grant funds toward communications equipment that “will benefit a wide range of jurisdictions in all kinds of emergencies,” he wrote in a letter to administrators throughout the state.

Hampden Public Safety Director Joe Rogers said he thinks all the funding should go toward communications rather than giving it out piecemeal to individual communities.

“If you parcel that out, I think the benefit is going to be reduced,” Rogers said.

To that end, Hampden has said it will turn over to the county $38,531 it received to go toward communications improvements. Penobscot County commissioners saw the move as a step forward, with Chairman Tom Davis saying Tuesday that “I hope all towns will get on board.”

One potential use for the funding could be to install a radio system capable of allowing emergency officials quick access to other channels if their main channel is already in use.

But it’s an expensive proposition costing millions of dollars and requiring new towers and radios, according to Cliff Wells, director of the Penobscot Regional Communications Center, which dispatches for most of the county.

On a smaller scale, Brewer Fire Chief Rick Bronson sees a need for new pagers in his department. He said Brewer firefighters depend on outdated paging equipment, some of which is 20 years old and isn’t made anymore.

Bronson has bigger ideas as well. At least some of the funding should go toward designing and engineering a new site for the regional communications center, moving it away from the downtown Bangor basement that now houses it, he said.

Moving it away from the low-lying downtown area – “the hole” – to higher ground would improve communications as well as provide room to expand.

Bronson suspects that both the fire station and the RCC building contributed to blocking out the transmission the ambulance crew tried to make Monday.

Bronson suggested that the old Army Reserve Center on Union Street in Bangor could be renovated and used as a new dispatch center.

And in a move that could benefit the federal government and the county, the three county commissioners suggested the former Over-the-Horizon Backscatter building at the Air National Guard base could be put to good use as a secure communications facility.