COUNTY'S E-911 IS A GOOD MODEL FOR HOW TO PLAN

In a little more than a year, Cape Girardeau County has put to rest many of the concerns and questions regarding implementation of Enhanced 911 emergency telephone service.

It was in 1991 that county voters overwhelmingly approved E-911, despite its $1.1 million price tag, which was to be financed with tariffs on county phone bills. After two years of paying for the service, it was implemented in November 1993. During those two years, the county faced the daunting challenge of coming up with the best way to establish a new addressing system.

A computer screen at the E-911 central dispatching center shows where an emergency call originates by listing the callers address, phone number and name. Emergency personnel then can be dispatched to the exact site of the call. City dwellers in Cape Girardeau and Jackson have street numbers and addresses, but what about rural residents? The county decided to put county residents on a 1,000-addresses-per-mile system.

For each mile of county road, there are 1,000 addresses available, and the number assigned a resident represents how far down the road his home is. Not only is the system simple, it is beneficial to emergency service personnel. When a fireman hears about a blaze at 200 County Road 415, for example, he knows the home is about two-tenths of a mile from the start of the road. That is a big improvement. In the past, emergency professionals had only route and box numbers to work with, which lengthened response time.

A lot of the credit for the new system goes to the county commission for asking Cape Girardeau County's emergency preparedness director, Brian Miller, to research what it would take to get a countywide system to match one already in place in Cape Girardeau. Miller's work was thorough and useful. A committee of representatives from Cape Girardeau, Jackson and the county was formed to select an E-911 system under Miller's tutelage. Once the appropriate system was selected, the committee became salesmen, trying to persuade the public that E-911 was good for the county. The public responded by approving the measure at the polls.

Now other counties who want to implement E-911 are looking to Cape Girardeau for advice. Thanks to the cooperation and competence of county officials, good advice is readily available.