In an emergency, seconds count. Time lost by fire, ambulance and police personnel in trying to find a home is time that could have been used helping the injured or ailing.
Completion of 911 addressing will lessen the likelihood of emergency responders not being able to quickly get to the scene of an emergency in any part of Huntingdon County. The planner heading up the project says the work should be finished by the end of 2004 though he is quick to call the timetable “tentative.”
Mapping work has been completed and new addresses issued in the northwestern portion of the county, where data collection began. Next in line to get new addresses are residents of the Alexandria and Petersburg area.
When completed, the project will provide a street address to each county residence. Additionally, those addresses will be mapped so emergency responders have no problems finding a home.
Brian Young, planner/GIS (geographic information systems) technician with the Huntingdon County Planning and Development Department, said the field work is two-thirds complete but reminds residents that the data collection process preceding the issuance of 911 addresses is time consuming.
“We have to do what’s called an address match list,” said Young. “Basically we are matching existing rural delivery addresses with the physical location of the structure and assigning a unique house number.”
Field technicians visit every residence in the county, listing the current address, occupant, style of home and phone number. Once received at the county office, the information is cross referenced with phone company and post office records.
“All that information is collected to get one person one address,” said Young. “It’s a big task. We anticipate completing the entire project by this time next year.”
All residents on the rural delivery system will receive new, physical house numbers. Those who use a post office box number will receive a house number for 911 dialing purposes but their mailing address won’t be changed.
If a property is the only one on a road or driveway, that route does not need to be named but instead can be addressed to the main road.
“If it has two addressable structures, it needs named,” said Young.
Where roads need named or renamed, letters have been sent to property owners giving them the opportunity to chose a name. Young said slang words or confusing names will not be accepted.
Residents are responsible for purchasing the sign. Names for street and road signs must have less than 14 characters.
Young said once the new system is in place it will be a help to the dispatch center.
“This is the start of an ‘e-911,’” said Young. “That’s the direction we’re headed in.”
To start the project, in 2000, the planning department first divided up the county into six regions. The first 911 addresses were issued in Region 1 (primarily the area of Warriors Mark and Franklin townships) in August 2001.
Field work for Region 2, the area under Alexandria and Petersburg zip codes, was completed in the fall of 2002 and the information submitted to the Johnstown District Post Office for review. The issuance of addresses for Region 2 is expected before the end of 2003.
With the help of a second addressing technician, added this spring, field work was initiated in Address Regions 3 and 6. Region 3 is comprised of Huntingdon and Marklesburg boroughs and Juniata, Lincoln, Miller, Penn, Oneida, Smithfield and Walker townships. The planning department expects to complete field verification of structures in this region in the fall of 2003. New addresses could be issued for Region 3 early in 2004.
Region 6 is comprised of Orbisonia, Mount Union, Rockhill, Saltillo, Shade Gap, Shirleysburg and Three Springs boroughs and Clay, Cromwell, Dublin, Shirley, Springfield and Tell townships. Field work has been completed in all but Clay, Saltillo, Springfield and Three Springs areas. These areas will be completed by the end of 2003, with addresses being issued in the spring of 2004.
“We’re hoping by next spring we can release addresses for Region 6,” said Young.
Young said residents who were not home when a field tech visited their house should mail to the county office — no postage necessary — the yellow addressing form left on their door. He said cooperation of residents is key to moving the addressing project along but said there is only a 30 percent return rate for the forms.
“It’s imperative they mail those back,” said Young. “That’s the only way we can provide information back to them.”
Richard Stahl, director of the planning department, said residents need to confirm that the field technicians are from the county offices. When working in the field, each technician wears photo identification.
Stahl said any resident with uncertainty to the identity of field personnel should contact the planning and development office at 643-5091.
Prior to being released to residents, the 911 addresses have to be reviewed by the post office. Addressing information for zip codes beginning “166” is reviewed by the Johnstown regional post office while “177” is covered by Harrisburg.
Young said once addressing information had been collected for the Alexandria area and released to the Johnstown post office, it was another eight months before the review process was completed.
“The postal service review process can be very time consuming,” said Young. “We try to provide them with everything they need.”
The new house numbers are issued based on distance of the residence from the start of the street or road on which the home is located. In this system neighboring houses won’t have sequential numbers.
