Coastal Real Estate and Lifestyles

Just learned about this very handy tool yesterday from our Advertising Coordinator, Gene Wilkins.  She was the first to broadcast that Highway 92 had been closed yesterday afternoon within seconds of its happening.  She had gotten a notice from SMCAlert, a system that broadcasts road, earthquake, weather, and other emergency situations.  Here’s a snippet from the FAQ…

Emergency Situations:

• Notify employees, and/or citizens of the location of the nearest emergency shelter, available bed space, hours of operation during a crisis;
• Notify employees/citizens of available evacuation routes during an emergency;
• Activate special teams within the community, based upon an event

Precautionary Warnings:

• Severe weather warnings;
• Change in the Homeland Security Advisory System terror alert level
• Pre-cautionary evacuation order if on high alert  

So I signed up too.  You can activate your notices on up to two cell phones and two email addresses.  It’s free, however, standard text messaging rates apply here.

This can be a huge time saver for those of us who travel Highways 92 & 1 on a regular basis - especially in our line of work!  Up until now I would turn on KCBS AM radio to wait for the traffic report “on the eights”.  You can configure how you receive these notices, but I set it up so that I received them on my Treo since I’m in the car so much.

Meeting someone for dinner or a property showing?  Picking up kids from school?  Medical or other appointment over the hill?  Now you can get the quick “heads up” to take another route if necessary.  For client meetings that may be delayed, this is a very useful, professional tool.

Note:  Just added this link to my website under “Emergency Preparedness”.