Do you know the way to 9 1/2 Street NW? A disturbing story popped up on the Public Safety Area 305 listserve earlier suggesting that District police and emergency services do not. The following story was reported Monday by a 9 1/2 Street NW resident:

As some of you already know, yesterday was a big day on 9 1/2 Street, crime-wise at least. Yesterday afternoon a man was beaten and robbed in front of my house (around 4pm). I heard and saw part of the ruckus and called 911. The incident was a bit horrifying but one of the scariest parts was the fact that I spent quite a few minutes trying to walk the 911 dispatcher through the process of entering our street address. Finally, she got someone from the ambulance dispatch to explain to her (via conference call) that she needed to override the standard address feature and type it manually. Even after that, I received multiple calls when the police could not find our street (she kept saying that he was in front of our house but the only man in front of my house was unconscious and bleeding). Eventually, police and ambulance responded and the man was taken to the hospital.

Now, we reckon we could forgive your average Muggle ambulance driver for being unable to respond to a call at Platform 9 3/4 — even Harry Potter himself had trouble finding it the first time around. But 9 1/2 Street NW should at the very least be familiar to emergency responders in the neighborhood, if not easily entered into whatever software program our 911 service is using to direct their drivers. Maybe someone should craft a memo introducing them to Google Maps?