First responders urge citizens to make houses easily identifiable in case of emergency

HARDIN COUNTY, Tenn. — First responders are urging Tennesseans to make their residences and businesses easily identifiable.

First responders sometimes have difficulty locating an emergency when address numbers are not clearly visible or properly posted. Navigation systems don’t always pinpoint exact residences, leading to longer response times.

“Obviously, if it’s a structure fire, we can see it pretty relatively easily and locate you, but if its behind the house, we may not see it, or a medical call. If you’ve called and we can’t see anything from outside of the house and we can’t see your numbers, we can’t find your house, get there to help you, and there’s been incidents of those out there in the county,” said Larae Smiley-Sliger, EMA director for Hardin County.

It’s important to give dispatchers enough information to allow first responders to reach you quickly. For example, some driveways have multiple addresses, so it’s important to specify. Here are some ways to properly post your address numbers.

“You can make sure that your number’s displayed on each side of your mailbox, preferably some that are reflective. Have them on the front of your house, have them on your pole like on the front of your front porch, something like that where we can see them from the roadway,” said Smiley-Sliger.

Weather and storms can especially make home locator numbers difficult to see. Here are a few ways to make your residence visible during any weather event.

“If you’ve called 911 and it’s in a storm like that and it’s raining really hard, on top of having the reflective numbers where when our lights hit it we can see it, you can flash your front porch light, things along that nature. Have somebody, if you have additional people that are at the residence go outside, turn the headlights on a car and flash them,” said Smiley-Sliger.

First responders strongly encourage Tennesseans to properly display their address numbers to so first responders can find you quicker and help keep you safe.

For more local news, click here.