By Rory Mcclannahan
Mountain View Telegraph
Hansel and Gretel left a trail of bread crumbs so they could find their way home.
We all know how that ended. If only the Teutonic twosome had taken a Global Positioning System, they wouldn't have had as much trouble. Of course, the trouble with a GPS is that it's only as good as the information it uses.
And in the case of Torrance County, Hansel and Gretel's bread crumb trail has needed updating.
The county started work on updating its GPS information at the beginning of July with the help of a state 911 grant. Ben Daugherty, a dispatcher with Torrance County, was trained on the software needed to update addresses and roads, and is now busy driving every road in the county to make sure houses are on roads and addressed properly.
"It's a lot like creating an electronic bread crumb trail," Daugherty said. "It will make it easier for emergency response to make it to homes when they are dispatched."
Dorothy Gibson, Torrance County's emergency services director, said the county received a $40,000 grant from the state's E-911 program. The grant allowed the county to hire Special Data Research to compile data collected by Daugherty. The updated addressing will be given to the state, which in turn will give it back to Torrance County.
Gibson said the county's addressing was last updated about 10 years ago. At that time, however, the county had to do most of the work by hand and did not have the latest satellite imaging maps to work with. Some roads and homes fell through the cracks.
The main problem facing the dispatch center is that many homes are not listed in its database, Gibson said. That means dispatchers can lose valuable time asking for directions from a person who calls 911. If someone calls 911 and can't speak, that could be a big problem, Gibson said. So far, that hasn't happened, she said.
"It could be a lot worse for us," Gibson said. "But fortunately our dispatchers are pretty good about where things are located in the county."
During his survey of the county, Daugherty will visit every home. If the home and the road where it is located are clearly marked, he enters that information into his laptop computer.
However, if a house is not marked or there is a question as to its address, Daugherty will knock on the door and talk to the resident. If the resident isn't there, he leaves a postcard the resident can use to update address information.
Daugherty said the most difficult area will be where the Trigo and Big Spring Fires destroyed homes. Those homes are shown on recent maps, but will obviously not be there when Daugherty comes through.
"I just want those folks to put up a clear address sign, so I'll know that they intend to rebuild and not get eliminated off the addressing system," he said.
Gibson said the project will probably take until the end of August to complete.
For more information on the project or any 911 issues, contact Gibson at 384-2705.
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