SMC Alert is San Mateo County’s primary alert and warning system used to contact you during urgent or emergency situations which may include life safety, fire, weather, accidents involving utilities or roadways or disaster notifications.
A few examples of the types of messages that can be sent through SMC Alert are:
Emergency situations:
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Flood, Fire, Severe Weather, or Tsunami Warnings
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Notify the community of the location of the nearest emergency shelter, available bed space, hours of operation during a crisis
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Available evacuation routes during an emergency
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Activate special teams within the community, such as CERT volunteers
Precautionary Warnings (optional subscriptions)
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Crime Alerts
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Major road closure such as a freeway
You can't be reached for the majority of non-life threatening emergencies if you don't register for SMC Alert — it’s an opt-in service so you must sign up in order to receive the alerts. Additionally, we will use other tools noted in this piece to try to reach you if you haven’t signed up.
You can set alerts to send emergency and non-emergency text and voice messages to your:
- email accounts
- cell phones, smartphones, tablets
- voice messages to landline phones (home & work)
SMC Alert is managed by the San Mateo County Department of Emergency Management (SMCEM).
The service is available to all cities, towns and special districts within San Mateo County. Alerts may also be sent by local police, fire and emergency managers from other cities within San Mateo County.
When you register, it’s important to add addresses. When you enter an address such as your home, work or child's school, the address is geocoded within the mapping system. This mapping system allows emergency managers to focus their alerts down to a specific neighborhood or any entire city or region. If you don't include at least one address, you may miss an important alert or receive alerts from other parts of the county that don’t apply to you.
SMC ALERT is free.
(Your carrier may charge you a fee to receive alerts on your wireless device). SMC Alert is available in all cities and towns in San Mateo County. Please read the SMC Alert Brochure linked at the bottom of the page for more information.