FRANKLIN COUNTY – With the addition of a new 911 system,residents are now becoming accustomed to a new way of tellingdirections and feeling more at ease about emergency services in thecounty.

“We’ve got the signs and everything in place now. People seem tobe getting used to it,” said Franklin County Chancery Clerk JimmyJones.

The project to bring a more advanced 911 system, complete withroad signs, began about seven years ago, according to Jones. But itdidn’t really take off until 2001.

After a contractor was hired to begin the job, Jones was askedin May 2001 to finish the project. He tackled the task of namingthe roads that did not have official names previously.

“Most of the roads were named back around 1988 by the county orstate,” said Jones. “The ones that weren’t, I had three gentlemenwho were retired from the U.S. Forest Service help me namethem.”

Then county officials made an official map marking all the roadswith their correct names. Jones said the naming of roads was themost difficult task during the installation of the 911 system.

“I think probably the biggest obstacle we’ve had to overcome waspeople adapting to the names of the roads,” he said, explainingthat until the roads were named officially, people had their ownways of describing roads.

After a series of public hearings, county officials put the 911system in place with the installation of road signs throughout thecounty about six months.

Jones believes the new system has been and will be instrumentalin providing better services for residents.

“The main reason is for emergency services,” he said. “If youhave an ambulance come out of Pike or Lincoln County and they’renot familiar with the area, it helps them find their way.”

Jones said the system is especially helpful in a county withmore than 95,000 acres of U.S. government land. He was glad to seethe system installed, bringing the county into the 21stcentury.

“I’m satisfied with the direction we’re going,” he said.