911 Addressing

ALL county residents who do NOT live within city limits MUST contact this office to obtain a 9-1-1 address.

If you live inside city limits, it is that city's responsibility to assign the 9-1-1 address. Contact the appropriate city for your address.

For additional information, or to request/obtain a 9-1-1 address, contact;

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Q: I don't receive mail at my house. Do I still need a 9-1-1 address?

A: 9-1-1 Dispatch needs to have a locatable address for every house that could potentially call 9-1-1. Even if you receive mail at a P.O. Box or from another location, you MUST still have a 9-1-1 address.

Q: How do they come up with my 9-1-1 address?

A: We use Distance Based Addressing (DBA). Every 10.56 feet is a potential address! We start at the closest intersection and use the Distance Measurement Indicator (DMI) to measure the distance to the center of the driveway for which we're assigning an address. The resulting number is the address. We deviate only slightly to designate addresses on the left or right side of the street. Odd addresses are always on the South or West side, with even on the North or East side of the road.

A: As we stated above, the driveway is the key point of the address. It's the only part of the residence that intersects the road, and therefore our only reference point on which to build the address. Driveways are key to the whole operation.

Q: Why do I have to notify the phone company if my address changes?

A: Even though we maintain a database of all structures in the County, we cannot keep up with changes in telephone numbers, people moving, etc. If your address changes for ANY reason, you MUST contact your telephone company. If you need to call 9-1-1, it will be from a telephone. Only the phone company has an up-to-date database of all telephone numbers and the addresses for them.

If the telephone company doesn't know where you live, neither will that ambulance or fire truck responding to the call from your house!

Q: Why can't 9-1-1 use rural route addresses?

A: When a 9-1-1 call is placed from a rural caller with only a post office rural route and box number, their address does not automatically show up on the computer screen in the communications center. Information on the 9-1-1 computer screen about the caller's address comes from the telephone company, but first 9-1-1 officials must provide the telephone company with a house and road number they can enter in their system.

From this information, the 9-1-1 dispatch computers tell us automatically which emergency responders respond to a given address. Rural route and box numbers cannot be used for 9-1-1 addressing because a rural route box number is only a delivery point the post office uses and does not represent the location of a structure or house.

Q: Why has my mailing address changed?

A: The post office has a mandate from Washington D.C. to use 9-1-1 addresses. Having a road and house number gives residences a permanent address (unlike a route and box number which is only a delivery point).

Q: Why are the numbers so long?

A: 9-1-1 needed to find an addressing system that was understandable, easy to use, and which would allow for growth. That is why we are using an addressing scheme which has 1,000 addresses per mile. This is to allow for future growth in all areas.