Anonymous
Source: Santa Barbara County Fire Department
The Santa Barbara County Fire Department would like to remind people of the importance of residential and commercial addressing. Every day, and more importantly every night, fire engines, ambulances and other emergency vehicles respond to residences and commercial buildings for calls of service. Often times, those responding are delayed in delivering life-saving care due to the lack of addressing on the building or the ability to see clearly see it.
A house or business that is properly addressed allows emergency responders to provide emergency medical services, fire suppression and law enforcement response much more efficiently. The following guidelines should be used when addressing your house or business:
1. Addressing numbers should be Four (4) inch tall minimum (residential) and six (6) inch minimum (commercial).
2. Numbers color contrasting to background for ease of recognition.
3. Visible from both directions of travel.
4. Placarded clearly on the structure. Think about vegetation obscuring view.
5. Recommend placarding secondary location from structure for positive identification in case of catastrophic event.
6. Numbers are to be used. Do not spell out the numerical designation.
What is going to happen when there are emergencies during a utility public safety power shut off? Hard to see an address obscured by vegetation, even harder to see in the dark.
Proper addresses would be helpful, for Postal people, filling-in on a route that they are not familiar with. I found that some of the “private” lanes, the houses wouldn’t have #’s on the houses, which would delay Express Mail, or anything that a signature is required, from getting delivered.
Thanks for the reminder. Our number sign is worn out and needs to be fixed or replaced. I’ll get right on it! (A couple houses down the street from me have no numbers whatsoever. I was trying to bring them some mis-delivered mail and had a hard time figuring out which house was which. While consecutive, the numbers have large uneven gaps–13011, 1315, 1323 etc., so it wasn’t obvious.)