Bluff • Thousands of people living on the Navajo Nation in Utah have long relied on directional descriptions for lack of physical addresses.
“Four miles east of Highway 191 at White Rock,” such a description might read. Or, “Two miles southwest of the Red Mesa Chapter House.”
These clunky, imprecise descriptions appear on driver licenses, voter registration forms and are relayed over the phone to fire departments and ambulances during emergencies, which can lead to life-threatening delays in response.
But starting this fall, residents of the reservation are being offered a new addressing option as the Rural Utah Project partners with Google to implement a free-to-use, open-source mapping technology known as Plus Codes.