County road signs disappearing

By CHARLES W. JOHNSON / News Editor for the Southern Standard

BOGLE

Stealing street or road signs is a form of vandalism that many teens perceive as harmless fun. They hang the signs on their doors or in their rooms as decorations — many times with their parents’ full knowledge.

But local 911 Board chairman Mark Gribble pointed out recently this practice may not be as harmless as one might think, since a missing street sign could conceivably delay an emergency vehicle and end up endangering someone’s life.

“Street signs are very important to our users, those being the fire department, the ambulance service and the sheriff’s department,” Gribble said. “It may be if a sign is down they don’t know where the road is since it’s not marked properly. Then that causes a delay in their response which could cause a fatality, or a house burning completely down. So road signs are very important to us.”

Street sign theft is a universal problem, affecting metropolitan and rural governments around the globe. In Manhattan, for instance, some $10,000 to $15,000 worth of signs and posts are stolen each year, resulting in a significant cost to taxpayers.

Gribble said at one point, every road in Warren County had a sign, but over the years vandalism, including sign theft, wind damage or accidents have resulted in a number of unmarked roads around the county. As a result, the 911 Board has instituted a program to restore the missing signs.

“We’re starting a project to work with the postal service in trying to find out exactly how many signs we do have down in the county,” Gribble said.

Gribble recently presented a list of the county roads to postal official Charles Bogle and the postal service will be cooperating with 911 with mail carriers reporting missing signs as they run their routes. Oddly enough, the 911 system paid for the first signs put up around the county, but subsequently laws were passed preventing this.

“The law states that 911 cannot put money into replacing signs,” Gribble said. “We paid for the first signs, but then the law came out and said we couldn’t buy signs anymore.”

It is somewhat difficult to determine exactly who is responsible for maintaining the county’s road signs, although County Executive Kenneth Rogers said his office would make sure any missing signs noted in the postal service report will be replaced, using jail inmate labor if necessary. Rogers also noted the aluminum signs cost between $20 to $40 each.

Though he feels it is a significant problem locally, Gribble said it’s hard to determine how many signs are actually missing due to vandalism.

“We just don’t really know. Signs just get gone and we don’t know if they’re in somebody’s bedroom, or just torn up and thrown away, or are missing due to wind damage,” Gribble said.

But he does feel it is a significant enough problem that 911 wants to institute an education program to let children know early on how important the signs actually are.

“When we go to the schools and talk about 911, we need to talk about road signs and directions,” Gribble said. “If we can start at an early age then these kids can learn that road signs are important, and if mom or dad are sick or hurt and the ambulance can’t find them, or if there’s a fire and the fire department can’t find them, then that’s a major problem.”