How To Help 911 Responders Find Your Home

If you had to call 911 could emergency vehicles even find your home? Each year hundreds of lives are lost because emergency vehicles could not arrive on scene fast enough. Imagine how frustrating it might be if an ambulance, fire truck or other emergency vehicle is delayed in coming to your home in the event of an emergency. Also imagine how frustrating it can be for the drivers of emergency vehicles if they cannot locate house numbers. Common causes for this are lack of proper street numbers on the home, trees or bushes blocking the view of house numbers and improper house number size. It takes only a few minutes to update your house numbers with reflective ones and to cut back branches and shrubs that block their view.

Here are some ways that you can help 911 responders find your home. You should always make sure that your house number is displayed in large sized lettering and located high enough that it can be seen from the road. Choose house numbers that are reflective if possible.

Do a driveby of your home at night and try to put yourself in the place of an ambulance driver trying to find it. Is there anything that makes your home stand out? If so, make sure to mention any unusual features of your home if you ever have to call 911.

One of the best ways to signal 911 emergency responders is with a flashing porch light. You can have someone manually flash the light or you can purchase special switches, which flash your porch light when in that position.

To help 911 emergency vehicles find your home, turn on every light in the home and also the emergency flashers on your car or truck.

Send someone to the curb to signal with a flashlight as the emergency vehicle approaches. A few seconds can literally mean the difference between life and death in certain situations.

If you live on a country road and do not have any kind of sign at all indicating your address you should make one. The universal 911 locator system has assigned addresses to many rural homes. If you don’t know your rural home’s 911 system address, contact your county government and inquire is such a number has been issued to your address. Request that a sign be placed by the county. If they cannot place such a sign, make your own sign out of reflective letters and place it on the roadway, at a sufficient height.

If you have to call 911 have a family member or friend wait out at the curb to signal the emergency vehicle to help them locate your home.