New rural address system to go on line in coming weeks
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Al Batt’s new address, 71622 325th St.
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Al Batt’s new address, 71622 325th St. Hartland, will tell everything about the precise location of his house: It is on 325th street, 0.122 miles east of 715th Ave.
The county will implement a new rural address system by the end of the year. 3,720 structures in the rural area will have new addresses consisting of five-digit house number plus street or avenue that is also numbered.
Batt’s current postal address, RR1 Box 56A, is designed only for mail delivery purposes and it does not mean anything in terms of the geographical location on the map.
The new system assigns numbers to every road in the county outside of incorporated towns. From a house number, which is based on the road numbers, you can know the distance from nearby road. 11124, for example, stands for 0.124 miles away from 110th Street.
Roads running west to east will become avenues, and the numbering goes from 610 at the west end to 910 at the east end. Streets will be for the roads going south to north, and the numbers go from 100 at the south edge of the county to 340 at the north border.
The county board approved Tuesday an ordinance that will implement the new address system. 3,720 blue-and-white house number boards and 1,097 green street corner signs will be ready next week, and the county will finish placing them by December.
Residents who live outside incorporated towns in Freeborn County will receive a notification about the change of address in three weeks. The new address will be effective 30 days after the notice. Mail to the old address will be still delivered for one year.
The new rural addressing was a pressing need for the county’s emergency services to dispatch agents as soon as possible, officials said.
Currently the agencies use a system that divides each township into checker-shaped section cells, and house numbers are assigned in order of construction. Accordingly, Batt’s house is 11-B-1, meaning the first structure built in section 11 of Hartland Township.
This method is problematic, too. To picture the location by listening the numbers is hard unless you remember how sections are allotted in the township or have a special map. Even fire dispatches could be lost. &uot;Bad weather may not allow firefighters to always spot the smoke for guidance,&uot; said County Highway Engineer Sue Miller.
A renovated 911 system called E911 also encouraged the new addressing.
With E911, the origin of a 911 call is pinpointed and shown on the dispatcher’s computer. After the address information of a new phone number is entered manually, the new addressing based on road numbering will enable E911 to update location data instantaneously and to dispatch rescue services quickly and accurately.
In addition, the road numbers are coordinated with neighboring Mower and Faribault county rural addresses. That makes cooperation with law enforcement authorities in the three counties much easier and more efficient, said County Sheriff Don Nolander.
The county spent $217,725 for the house number boards and corner signs. Owners of a newly built structure will be obligated to apply for a new address from the county along with their building permit and pay the fee for a house number board.