Clearly visible house numbers are crucial for first responders because they help in locating the address of an emergency quickly, reducing the response time. In urgent situations, every second counts, and obscured or missing numbers can lead to potentially life-threatening delays. Accurate and visible numbering ensures that medical, fire, and police personnel can provide timely and effective service when it matters most.

Having a clearly visible house numbers is not just a good idea, it's the law.

City of Rye Code § 69-3
Number specifications and placement.

The purpose of this chapter shall be to require the clear display of house or building numbers (hereinafter "house numbers") from public streets for all properties that contain a principal building within the City of Rye in order to assist the general public or the authorities in identifying any property in case of an emergency as well as for the welfare of the general public in conducting its normal affairs.

In order to comply with this chapter, house numbers shall be Arabic in design, shall have a minimum height of two inches and shall be mounted in a secure fashion to the building's front wall or to a porch or other fixed appurtenance in front of the building in the general vicinity of the main entryway or main path of travel which leads to the main entrance from a public or private street, or otherwise separately mounted in an approved manner upon the face of a wall or upon a post in the front yard of the premises. Auxiliary numbers shall be mounted a height between four feet and 10 feet above the adjacent grade for exterior landing directly beneath but never higher than 15 feet above the adjoining grade. They shall be sufficiently legible as to contrasting background, arrangement, spacing, size and uniformity of integers so that the numbers may be read with ease during the daylight hours by a person possessing at least 20/40 vision as he views the numbers from the center line of the facing street and at an elevation of five feet above the finished surface thereof. The numbers shall be so placed that trees, shrubs or other obstructions do not block the line of the numbers from the center of the street to any appreciable degree.