Public Safety and Accurate Addressing

When you call 911, do you assume that police, fire, and ambulance (public safety) personnel can find you? Of course your telephone number, and maybe even your address, will show up on the 911 dispatcher's screen. The physical address, however, of your home or business may not match up with the addressing sequence of your street, or with the Master Street Address Guide (MSAG). In that case, public safety officers may lose precious seconds or minutes getting the help you need.

An effort is currently under way to examine the current level of accuracy of addressing in Whitfield County. The county's Information Technology and GIS departments are making recommendations to the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners to fund just such a study. This study will recommend several options that are available to correct the problem areas. Exactly what solutions will be identified, and their associated costs, is unknown at this time. We do not believe, however, that a cost can be placed on the value of getting help to citizens in Whitfield County.

In addition to improving the accuracy of emergency services delivery, this project will improve the accuracy of the Dalton and Whitfield County Reverse 911 emergency notification system. The city and county governments implemented this system using a commercially available map. With varying degrees of accuracy, this map determines, based on a cross reference with the telephone database, where your home or business is located on a given street. With the improvement of addressing, and a credible local map, the Reverse 911 system will operate much more efficiently and accurately.

The county Board of Commissioners are scheduled to review proposals for the initial study on Monday, May 14 at their regular meeting.