911 calls may soon see bigger numerals

By Theresa Goffredo

Herald Writer

EVERETT — On average, Everett firefighters can sometimes lose 30 seconds on their way to an aid call or a fire because the victim’s address is so poorly marked on the house.

Sometimes it can take up to four minutes.

And if you’re choking or hanging by your fingernails from a burning building, those can be very long minutes, Fire Marshal Warren Burns said.

"We’re doing telephone CPR (instructions) and people are evacuating their building, and we’re in the middle of the road, and we can’t find the place," Burns said Monday. "That is really frustrating, and it’s life-threatening."

On Wednesday, the city council is expected to pass an ordinance that will require larger address numerals on all new buildings.

Under the current city code, individual address numerals cannot be less than 3 inches in height — about the size of a person’s thumb — and not less than 1 1/2inches wide.

The new ordinance, if approved, would allow the fire marshal to establish guidelines for new address labeling. The size would depend on the distance of the structure from the street.

For instance, a home that is between 151 and 200 feet from the road would need address numerals that were at least 10 inches tall and 5 inches wide.

Burns said the new sizes are standards developers currently use, so all the ordinance would do is put developers and city officials on the same page and shouldn’t mean any additional costs to developers.

The need for the guidelines has become increasingly important as property values continue to rise and plots are subdivided to accommodate second homes on the back half of lots. Some of those homes are 150 feet from the road, Burns said.

"They are just so far away that we can’t see the numbers, even with the spotlight on them," Burns said. "And with fires that increase exponentially by the second, and heart and brain and organ emergencies that increase by the second, literally every second counts."

You can call Herald Writer Theresa Goffredo at 425-339-3097 or send e-mail to goffredo@heraldnet.com.

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