Alert San Diego

I’m reviewing this emergency app because these are very outdated reviews. I mean over 10 years ago?? Well it’s 2025 September and I downloaded it to my newer iPhone running updates IOS! Lots of info and didn’t have a terrible time loading any info. A lot of important information is in this app! Plus earthquake preparedness and the maps are great (USGS)! Straight forward app, & isn’t horrible in any way. We all need to remember it’s all about being prepared,& having a few options. This app is a one part of a larger disaster preparedness tool kit (go bag, water, food, pet food, batteries, medicine, blankets, flashlights etc) we all should have!

This app woke up our house in the middle of the night just now with an earthquake it claimed was 1 mile away but was actually 808 miles away, not even close to San Diego. It rated the distant earthquake as “weak” as it blasted our home with full-volume air-raid style alarms, red emergency screens, and a map showing us and the earthquake in literally different states. Then after a hot minute, it realized the earthquake is 808 away, not 1 mile away as it first assumed, and cancelled the alert. The app clearly has a bug that incorrectly calculates the initial location and distance of an earthquake, causing it to report events that are (1) not close to us and (2) not even close to San Diego. This isn’t the first time this has happened with this app; therefore, we’re deleting it. We don’t want to get woken by false alarms.

Due to the Lilac Fire, this app has exploded in notifications... Unfortunately most are super unhelpful. It would be great if they could limited notifications to only truly emergency info. Here are some of the notifications I've received: "DA warns of price gouging" "Looking for ways to help? Monetary donations recommended" Why are these worthy of the terrifying notification sound? I don't want to turn off notifications in case there is actually helpful info, but they are encouraging me to by having all updates appear equally important by notifying me of all of them. It would also be helpful to be able to change the notification sound to be something other than the smoke alarm chirp that's the default. When you are worried about fires, smoke alarm noises are super stressful. The maps, shelter info, and volunteer info is super helpful. That part is top notch.