By Officer Jessica Roy

Have you ever tried to find a friend's house number when you visit them for the first time? If you have had trouble seeing their house number, then you may have had a small introduction to a major problem that people in the emergency services go through everyday. For every call for service either the police or fire department go on, we need to find an address. The police department alone had approximately 42,732 calls for service in the 2001-2002 calendar year.

It is very important to be able to see house numbers, especially in an emergency situation. Put yourself in a very likely situation that may occur at any time. There is an emergency 911 call that comes into our dispatch center. All that is heard in the background is a screaming voice, then it is silent. The call has been disconnected. Dispatch continues to try to call back the number to find out what is going on, but the line is busy. Dispatch notifies the patrol officer on the street of the address that the phone number comes back to. As the officer, you put on your lights and siren and respond to that address.

You are now on the correct street, but which house is it? There are old mailboxes out on the street for some of the homes, but no numbers. The houses do not have numbers that can be read from the street. You now have to slow your car down to a crawl speed and turn on your spotlight. Now valuable time is being lost, you have to shine your light on every house. If you can find one house that has a number, then you can try to count the number of houses and hope that you are at the right house when you pull in their driveway.

This scary situation could easily be resolved for just a few dollars. It could be fixed as easy as placing 2-3" reflective numbers on both sides of your mailbox. This is a very low cost, yet effective remedy to the situation. If it is possible, large numbers on the home near the front door would also be helpful. Next time you drive through your neighborhood, look at your home and your neighbors. Are you able to see the house number?

Remember, it may not seem important to you now, but in an emergency, every lost second seems like an eternity. Please try to help us, help you.