Reverse 911

Many of us who live in the remoter regions of San Diego County spend quite a bit of time many miles from home, at work, shopping, having fun, or whatever. A reverse 911 call to our homes when we're away is of little use.

I heard on the radio this morning that San Diego County very recently installed a second-generation reverse 911 system that is much more capable than the old one. It can make hundreds of thousands of calls per hour (a huge improvement), and it can handle cell phones and email addresses. But – a big but – it can only do this if you tell it what numbers or email addresses to call when your address is threatened.

Fortunately they've made it very easy. I just did it for our home, and it took less than a minute to register my cell phone, my wife's cell phone, and both our email addresses. All you need to do is to go to the County's sign-up web site, and fill in one simple form.

Take a few moments and do it now, while you're thinking of it…