The towns of East Otto and Ashford are safer places to live these days due to the efforts of selected individuals from each of those communities. Both towns have nearly completed the installation of “911” signs. The reflective, uniform signs with house numbers printed on them are highly visible at night and cut down on response time when firefighters or emergency personnel need to find your home.

Town of East Otto board member Bill Spors initiated having the numbers brought into that town. “We budgeted for the signs last year,” said Spors.

He added, “I had seen the signs being put up in other towns and I thought what a great thing it was. Especially in our area, we have a lot of hidden driveways, cabins and homes that are tucked way back in. Nobody knows who’s there. You could drive right by them, particularly at night and lose valuable time in an emergency situation.”

Spors asked for volunteers to help put up the signs. Several board members, local citizens, and Spors installed them. The work was done mostly on weekends. Spors said the signs cost around $10.50 per home for the sign, post and hardware.

* * * * *

As the author of this article, I know first-hand how important a quick response is to a 911 call. In 2005, I fell off my roof. With many broken bones and a punctured lung, I managed to crawl in my back door, call 911, and then crawl out to my front porch.

The West Valley fire chief happened to be half a mile down the road from my house. My first indication of an emergency response was just minutes after the call, the fire chief stopping to check the number on my mailbox. The number was there but faded. Not everybody thinks to put the house numbers on right away when installing a new mailbox or moving into a new home. With the very visible, uniform numbers at the end of the driveway on their own post, a few seconds could have been saved. Not having a number could mean the difference between life and death.

Each town has different colored signs; Ashford’s are green with white numbers. East Otto’s are white with red letters.

If there is an organization dedicated to installation, placement, or promotion of the 911 signs, it’s keeping a low profile. Each municipality has to figure out the best way to obtain the signs and where and how to install them.

West Valley Environmental Services LLC provided a grant to the West Valley Fire Department for the cost of the signs in the town of Ashford.

Veteran West Valley EMT and fire fighter Kent Hoppel said, “We’ve spent at least three hours every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the summer putting the signs up. There was probably a group of 20 of us who worked on it on and off.”

Concerning complaints he said, “I worked on a hundred households myself and there were probably just two that had questions about them.”

The first 911 numbered signs in Ashford originated from a list of so-called “land-line” phone numbers of residents. Signs are in the process of being produced now for people who don’t have phone service or use a cell phone exclusively instead of a “land-line.”

The 911 numbers are a good idea, if you don’t have one at the end of your driveway yet, a call to your local fire department or town board would be in order.