By Zeke MacCormack
San Antonio Express-News
KERRVILLE, Texas — Bill Amerine almost sees red when he drives along Kerr County roads without spotting any blue.
The blue he watches for is reflective signs on gates and mailboxes, address markers that his staff dispenses to ensure that police, ambulance crews and firefighters can find correct locations in emergencies.
“There should be 122 signs between Kerrville and Comfort on Texas 27,” said Amerine, the executive director of the Kerr 9-1-1 Network. “The last time I drove that road, I counted 45.”
At $5 a sign, it’s the cheapest insurance available for life and property, he said.
Despite appeals and warnings, roughly 3,500 residences in Kerr County lack signs marked with an official 911 address and are “disasters waiting to happen,” Amerine told Kerr County commissioners recently, blaming privacy concerns and complacency.
He worries that he has sold only 11,000 signs in six years - but that’s far ahead of Kendall County, where only 47 have been issued since the county assumed the task in 2007 from the Kendall Soil and Water Conservation District, which had sold 155 starting in 2005.
In a new push, Kendall County now includes the $15 cost of a sign in the $100 permit that new residents need to connect a driveway to a county road. But officials are unsure how to convince long-time residents to get signs.
The computer-aided 911 dispatch system relies on people registering their phone and physical address with their phone company and posting their 911 address, which can differ from their postal address.
“It’s important to have some kind of address posted, but it’s more important to have the correct address posted,” Kendall County Commissioner Darrel Lux said.
Comfort Volunteer Fire Chief Danny Morales said he has come to expect a challenge when answering 911 calls in Kendall County.
“As soon as we start to roll out that way, we ask dispatch if someone is going to be waiting at the gate to show us where to turn in,” said Morales, chief for 20 years of the small agency that covers parts of Kerr, Kendall and Gillespie counties.
It’s much different in Gillespie County, where “you can go down a county road and every entrance has a number,” he said.
Raynell Wilke, rural addressing manager there, figures 85 percent of property owners have erected signs. They cost $4, and “we stress that they don’t have to put them up, but it’s in their best interest,” she said.
Eliminating that choice in Comal County resulted in signs going up outside most dwellings there, Comal County Commissioner Greg Parker said.
In Bandera County, Carey Reed’s sleep improved as more residents posted their addresses.
“I used to get calls at home at night from dispatch saying, ‘We can’t find this person,’ and I’d drive over to the office to check my file because I have notes listed about the house or gate,” recalled Reed, the county’s rural addressing coordinator.
She has noticed a steep learning curve among residents left waiting in a time of need.
“Normally, the day after they have an emergency, they’re calling over here saying, ‘I want to verify the 911 address you gave me 10 years ago so they can find me,’” Reed said.
Many 911 callers facing a crisis aren’t able to calmly describe their location.
“If you have a heart attack or a compound fracture or a fire headed your way, you’re wondering, ‘Why can’t they find me?’ And it all comes back to, ‘Because the property isn’t clearly marked,’” said David Flores, who supervises emergency dispatchers in Kendall County.