The City of Chester Police Department is sponsoring “Project House Numbers” with a goal to have every house in the city display a visible house address for cases of emergency, said Interim Chief Gene Gilmore. The project, which began on Monday, continues through Memorial Day, May 30.
“We’ll be putting reflective number signs on houses,” Gilmore said. “This will help to find houses in an emergency.”
City police officers and volunteers will accept orders from city residents and perform the painting free of charge. This service will benefit not only police and emergency personnel, but city residents as well.
“It helps us with our response time and it helps us get to the elderly when they are in distress,” Gilmore said.
The recent storm, which left thousands in the city limits without electricity for several days, helped propel this project into immediate action, the interim chief said.
“When the storm came and we were trying to find citizens, it made it hard to find certain houses because some trees were down and we could not see the mailbox or the doorway,” Gilmore said. “We want to spread this word that we are out and about to help the citizens of Chester. Our emergency management team needs to know what houses and what numbers are on the houses so that we can get to them in a timely manner.”
City police officers have volunteered to help with this project during their time off from regular work duties, Gilmore said. Officers completed 10 work orders for this project on Monday and are awaiting more calls, Gilmore said. He encourages residents to spread the word to neighbors and friends who need their numbers posted on their homes or those who may already have addresses posted but those numbers are in disarray.
By Denyse Middleton, Staff Reporter with The News & Reporter
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