Costa Mesa launches emergency alert system

Costa Mesa has launched its own citywide phone and e-mail notification system for residents to complement a similar county system set to lose grant funding next year, city officials announced Tuesday.

AlertCM is modeled after the AlertOC system that calls landlines and cell phones with information and instructions during emergencies to businesses and homes countywide.

Just like that system, AlertCM already has primary home and business numbers included in the system, but residents and workers can add more numbers to it by going to the city’s website. The program can also send text messages.

With the AlertOC program only funded by grants through 2012, city officials said communities that want to remain in it would have to pay between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. AlertCM allows for a seamless transition to the local version, said Dan Joyce, a Costa Mesa public affairs manager.

—Joseph Serna