Lack of house numbers slowing fire, emergency response

911 and fire departments are offering address signs for rural areas
Hawkins County, Tennessee emergency services are offering these easy-to-read address signs to residents living in rural areas.

From the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina:

Firefighters from the Burton Fire District were racing to reports of a Grays Hill infant who had stopped breathing about two weeks ago when they encountered a familiar and frustrating problem.

They couldn’t find the house.

“For some reason, the address wouldn’t come up on the engine’s (on-board computer),” said district spokesman Dan Byrne, who was a paramedic on the call. “We came to a ‘T’ in the road and none of the houses nearby were numbered so we turned right. The house numbers started going up and not down so we had to pull a quick U-turn in the middle of the road.”

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