By Rupert Howell
Emergency agencies as well as Panola County’s Land Commission office are urging Panola residents to post their house numbers so that emergency responders and others needing to locate residents, such as delivery services, can find the correct location.

Panola County’s floodplain manager Chad Meek, whose duties include assigning house numbers in rural areas, said that any location approved for permanent utilities is required to come through his office and obtain a street address.

But it’s those locations previously occupied prior to the law that requires posting of the street address that give first responders and others the most trouble.

“What’s going to happen is someone is going to be sick and need transporting to the emergency room and the ambulance is not going to be able to find them,” Meek said.
Panola County’s chief deputy Chris Franklin has complained for years about first responders not being able to locate the correct address during emergencies because many residences are not clearly marked.

The county’s mapping system coordinates with the E-911 dispatchers who can put first responders at exact addresses saving valuable minutes in some instances, whether fire emergency, heart attack or stroke, or law enforcement related emergency.

But if there is no house number or marker, that extra time saved is negated.

Field Dew who works with the State Department of Health said state law requires each resident to have a house number and noted, “Some people wrongly think they don’t need a number if they don’t have get their mail at their residence.”

Meek said that those with questions about E-911 addresses should call his office at 563-6313.