NAVIGATING CITY A CHALLENGE.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - A police officer who called for help recently in a new Valencia housing tract waited close to 20 minutes because dispatchers couldn't find the street - an illustration of just how fast the scenery changes and the challenge for emergency workers in keeping up.

In fact, of the 506 new streets in the 2006 Los Angeles County edition of Thomas Bros. maps, 384 are in the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley areas, according to Nancy Yoho, vice president of the Geographic Information Systems at Rand McNally, which publishes the map book series.

``That accounts for 76 percent of all the new streets in the county,'' Yoho said. ``That area has had the highest percentage of growth and we expect that trend to continue in the years to come.''

Carolyn Fuess knows delivery people won't be able to find her Valencia Westridge house on Shadow Rock Road, so she offers directions when she places an order for pizza or window cleaning.

``I know we're not on MapQuest, so I always tell them,'' she said. ``But the firetrucks were here not too long ago, so they must not have a problem.''

Deputies at the Santa Clarita Valley sheriff's station carry a ``Hutt Guide,'' a self-published directory created by Deputy Greg Hutt, who catalogs new construction.

``He takes it upon himself to go out and research every street and collect address numbers so we're able to find them,'' Lt. Larry Gump said. ``Most of our guys have his book in their cars, alongside their Thomas Guides.''

Gump said most of the field deputies also drive the construction areas on their own and memorize the street names.

American Medical Response, which provides ambulance service for the area, admitted that new construction poses some challenges.

``We're not always familiar with the new houses, but we get on the radio with the fire department and they help us,'' dispatcher John Brito said.

County Fire Inspector John Mancha said his department has its own computer maps from a database created by dispatch personnel. Documents submitted for fire department plan checks are gleaned for information that makes the fire dispatchers experts on any location.

``We have the ability to run an address and figure out first which area they're in,'' Mancha said. ``Our maps are pretty up to date. With the Thomas Guide, we're at the mercy of when they put it out.''

Within Santa Clarita city limits, there are 1,900 streets, 250 of them added in the last five years.

The Thomas Guide is updated annually and there is no online edition that receives special treatment, even for emergency services. Yoho said the company tries to stay ahead of the game by obtaining tract maps from developers before homes are built and adding street names to the maps.

``Usually the streets are built within six months of submission,'' she said. ``If we put a street into our product three months before it's published, it could be another three months before the street on the page is actually completed.''

Online map services, such as MapQuest and Yahoo Maps, rely on their researchers actually driving the streets before they are added to the database, which is why their maps may not match a current version of the Thomas Guide.

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com