Emergency Awareness: The Importance of Bold, Easy to See Home Addresses

Clinton, MO. – (Dec. 5, 2024) – Are your home address digits easy to spot from the main road? Janet Taylor, an EMT at Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare (GVMH), would like to remind everyone to consider the importance of clear, boldly contrasting numbers and the effect they have on the speed of emergency response teams.

Clinton and surrounding areas have many rural homes outside city limits, yet emergency response teams are still responsible for responding promptly regardless of your home’s location. Whether you live within the city limits or outside, here are some best practices for helping emergency responses to be lightning fast:

1. Where are your address numbers? If you have property, does your mailbox on the main road have your home address digits? You don’t want emergency vehicles to have to drive down your private road to get close enough to your home to verify the address. Doing so might severely slow down the speed with which teams can respond.
2. Can you clearly see your address from the street? Walk out into the street and consider if your address is clearly visible. Can you see the numbers in the daylight, in the dark with your home’s lights on, and in the darkness with all home lights off? If the answer to any of these questions is no — you may need to improve the visibility of your address.
3. How expensive is increased visibility? Obviously, you can have the numbers painted on your mailbox or home. Choosing to place self-adhesive numbers on your home or mailbox is a cost-effective alternative. These numbers only cost around $1 per number. We suggest at least 2”-3” high numbers to ensure numbers are easily seen from the road. Self-adhesive numbers also have the advantage of having a reflective background.
4. Why can’t emergency teams rely on GPS? Technology has improved immensely over the last 30 years, but can still fail when satellites are out, during storms, etc. Do you want to bet your life or the life of a loved one on GPS? Planning for occasional technology failures is always preferable to failing to plan.

For those residents with loved ones paying for a medical alert system like Life Alert, Lifeline, Medical Guardian, etc., clearly visible home address digits could make the difference. The sooner emergency response teams can arrive on scene, the faster lifesaving measures can be taken.

Lastly, if you have keyless entry to your home or a hiding spot for your key, you can give the code or information on the key’s hiding place to the Dispatch by calling their non-emergency numbers. This information is only available to police and other emergency responders in the event of a crisis. (I.e. The information is not available at any other time other than a crisis to speed up response times.)