911 SYSTEM WILL REQUIRE 7,000 ADDRESS CHANGES

JACKSON -- If you live in rural Cape Girardeau County, get ready for a new address.

About 7,000 rural addresses will have to be converted for the countywide 911 emergency response system voters approved in November, said the director of the county's Data Processing Department, Ron Andrews.

The department is helping the county's 911 implementation committee with the process, considered to be the biggest component and top priority of the 911 project.

A 911 system works when a person dials 911 on their telephone during an emergency. The address conversion process must be undertaken as part of building the system's data base, called a Master Street Access Guide, Andrews said.

"That's the data base that will be on the computer that will have the phone numbers and addresses; where they're located. It's very critical that it's done."

The purpose, he said, is to come up with a meaningful address and a way of systematically addressing buildings as new houses, businesses and other structures are built. Andrews said addresses in the counties' cities will not have to be converted.

The number of addresses needed to be converted in the rural area is based on the number of phone numbers there, he said.

This Friday, Andrews said, a three-week educational process will begin toward the project. After that, a formal request for a proposal outlining the needed conversion services will be put together and put out for bid, he said.

Andrews said the conversion process is expected to be under way by the beginning of April and take an estimated nine months to a year. Committee chairman Brian Miller said the 911 system is expected to go on line less than two years from the vote, or before Nov. 5, 1993.

"We're at the point right now of having presentations by various vendors to help us establish the right direction to go with this," Miller said of the conversion process. "There's several different ways to go about it."

Andrews said a meeting will be held Friday with the Memphis, Tenn., company of Mid-South Survey. Mid-South has done similar address conversions in counties in Tennessee. The following two Friday meetings will be held with ETG of Overland Park, Kan., and Miller Associates of Columbia, he said.

Most companies he has talked with use a combination of computerized mapping and field verification for the conversions, said Andrews. He said roads are driven to make sure structures are where they are believed to be.

Based on initial conversations, Andrews said, most companies hire local people to do the field work since they are somewhat familiar with the area.

The potential is there, Andrews said, for people to not want their addresses changed. But he said: "We hope everyone understands the purpose of it: it's to make the 911 system work for the best, and, if they get in an emergency situation, so they can get a good response time."

Miller said the 911 process is off to "a running start" and on schedule. Every day, he said, something comes up in the county where people say it would have been good to have 911.

"That adds impetus to all of this and encourages us onward, and we're not going to do anything that causes us to drag our feet," he said. "We're as anxious to have it running as everyone else is."

A public information and education program is ongoing to teach people how to use 911, he added.

Committee member Carl Kinnison said the expected cost to convert the addresses is not known. The cost would vary depending on what services a company is asked to provide, he said.

Kinnison said the cost of an adequate 911 system was originally estimated at $900,000. But he said all indications are that the county might be able to get the system for less than that.

Making up the 911 committee, along with Miller and Kinnison, are Leonard Hines, chief deputy of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department; Lt. Richard Knaup of the Jackson Police Department; Assistant Jackson Fire Chief Randy Welker; Mark Hasheider, training officer with the Cape Girardeau Fire Department; and Allen Moss Jr., the assistant attorney general for Missouri at Jackson.