The Town of Tecumseh has launched a new initiative that assigns civic addresses to access points on vacant agricultural and rural lands.
The initiative is called the 'Farm 911 Emily Project' and aims to improve accessibility for emergency services in rural locations and communities.
Those who apply will receive a yellow Farm 911 sign for easy identification by emergency services.
The name 'Emily Project' originates following an accident in Hastings, where a young girl named Emily Trudeau died due to emergency services struggling to locate the site of an accident with no civic addresses assigned.
Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara says members of the farming community have been asking for this.
"There are a lot of rural fields that have no address," McNamara continued. "As we know, unfortunately, there are farming accidents that do occur and when you're calling first responders through 911 it's difficult to be able to identify which field in particular when there is no marker."
McNamara says there are around 75 communities in Ontario that have adopted the program.
"You just have to go to their site and make an order and you will get a yellow 911 addressing sign. It's then included to all of our dispatch in the area, so if there was an incident that was to happen at a certain field we can put that address up and ambulance, police or fire will know exactly where to go."
He says first responders are for this new program.
"Chief Crowder from our EMS services in the county said this is a wonderful idea because there is nothing worse than a first responder responding to an emergency and the frustration of trying to locate where they are," McNamara said.
Tecumseh is one of over 75 municipalities in Ontario participating in this initiative and the first in Windsor-Essex.
More information can be found here.
- with files from AM800's The Shift