Mark Welsh, Staff Photographer
Nestled among rolling hills, massive horse farms, 5-acre minimum lot homes and thousands of acres of forest preserve, Barrington Hills remains unadulterated by suburban sprawl.
Straddling roughly 29 square miles over four counties — Cook, Kane, Lake and McHenry — the village has little more than 3,900 residents, lots of trees and open space.
But along with the benefits of living in a quintessential rural setting comes spotty cellular phone service and dropped Internet connections.
Plans in the works could solve those problems, which have some residents concerned about emergency response time and other safety issues.
“There’s a lot of people that rely on their cell phone and when you dial 9-1-1 the Barrington Hills Police Department can tell where you are at physically in town, provided your call gets through,” said Pat Hennelly, who has lived in town 20 years. “There are sections in my house where, if I fall over with a stroke, I couldn’t get connected to the 9-1-1 service.”
Connectivity issues are affecting the safety of residents, Hennelly’s wife, Nancy, chimed in.
“I do a lot of horseback riding and when I would ride in the forest preserve I would see people that had fallen off their horses and I couldn’t get a connection to call 9-1-1,” she said.
