In American Fork, part of Main Street is really 50 South and some house numbers aren't consistent. But the people who live on those streets may not know it.

The address changes on those and other streets were made 20-30 years ago. But the city never forced residents to accept the modifications, though some did. Now city officials are considering making the address changes mandatory.

The impact of the changes has become more pronounced in recent years. When ambulance drivers are heading to a call, they can be misdirected by a combination of old and new addresses on the homes.

Rick Storrs, a city councilman and ambulance driver, described the situation.

"It is a huge problem," he said. "You get dispatched out to the county address. You go past 810, 910 and 940, then the addresses go back to 874 and 885 (East).

"It could mean two or three minutes lost in trying to get to somebody," he said. "It makes a big difference."

Storrs said a similar problem could exist in the case of a fire, although most often fires or the associated smoke are visible from the street.

He gave the example of homes that are designated as 901, 910 and 940, but should be 825, 828 and 842. He said there are about 16 homes with questionable addresses.

Ric Wilcox, the supervisor of customer service at the American Fork Post Office, said he was working with the city to fix the problem.

"The city will come out with a letter, and the Post Office will come out with one also," he said. "We will tell the residents we will deliver mail for six months to the old addresses. That would give them a chance to change. After that we will not deliver incorrectly addressed mail."

Wilcox stressed the Post Office would be following through with action the city took years ago.

"We are just going to enforce the fact and hope the community will work with us on the change," he said.

Storrs said there's another problem with addresses. Although it is not as confusing as addresses not in order, there are many homes that do not have their addresses displayed.

That can also make them hard to find, Storrs said.

"We are working on an ordinance to correct that," he said. "We need to have them so we can clearly find them for public safety."

He identified related problems with homes with addresses in different locations -- front of the home, mailbox, curb -- which can make the addresses hard to find, especially for those in a hurry. Lack of lighting can also make the addresses hard to read at night, he said.

Another Utah County city -- Elk Ridge -- faced its own address mess last year.

In April 2006, an ambulance there was lost because too many streets had the same, or similar, names. Those safety concerns were addressed with street name changes -- streets with similar names that intersected each other were changed. In the examination of street names, the city also discovered misnumbered properties.

Elk Ridge then decided to realign back to the original city grid that was created more than three decades ago. The results caused more than 100 homes needing a change of address.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.