The 9-1-1 addressing project in Putnam County is nearly complete, and officials are now turning their attention to fixing any mistakes before the finalized addresses are sent to mapping companies.

Jason Owens, deputy director of 9-1-1 and emergency management, said the final new addresses were issued in Hurricane in January.

“If your address was going to change, you would have gotten a letter from the post office, Owens said.

The addressing project stemmed from a 2003 ordinance passed to bring Putnam County’s addressing in line with standards set by the West Virginia Statewide Addressing and Mapping Project. The new addressing system allows for 1,000 addresses for every 10.56 feet of road.

The project has been met with fierce public opposition. After residents of Joy Lane and Cleveland Drive in Culloden complained to the county commission, the board added a clause to the policy that would allow subdivisions with a reasonable addressing system to remain unchanged.

White said the decision to keep some addresses the same complicated things even more in December when a database of incorrect addresses was released by the Postal Service. Residents in communities where addresses would remain the same began getting mail addressed to a new address.

Owens estimates the problem was corrected within “a week or two,” but the damage had already been done.

Putnam County resident Karla Murphy recently wrote to the Daily Mail on Feb. 28 with concerns about the new addressing system. Her address was among those that were eligible to remain unchanged, but the database error prompted an alert from her credit monitoring service and has resulted in her receiving mail not addressed to her.

“I spent my entire evening on the phone notifying all of my creditors and other entities from which I receive mail of the error, Murphy said.

Murphy worried that she may never receive mail addressed to her if it is erroneously delivered to a neighbor, and that the mix-up may hinder emergency responders’ efforts to find her actual address in the event of an emergency.

“I wonder what would happen if I needed help through 911?” Murphy said. “If I do have a true emergency, will they even know where to respond?

Putnam County Emergency Services Director Frank Chapman told the Daily Mail in October the postal service will deliver to both addresses for a year, and 9-1-1 will keep both addresses on its maps for the foreseeable future.

“I’d lie if I said everything was perfect, Owens said. “If you could do an entire county’s worth of 27,000 structures–if I could say there weren’t any hitches, I’d be lying.”

Owens said Putnam County 9-1-1 is now in the process of correcting any errors that may still need attention. Residents who have questions about the addressing project or believe there is an error with their address can call Owens at 304-586-5370, ext. 3.

Owens said he will clear up any mistakes and finalize the database over the next month or two. “Once that’s taken care of, it’s done. We’ll pass that data along to the state and they will try to get that information out to people who can use it, like Google and TomTom,” Owens said.