Case Study: San Diego County Office of Emergency Services achieves scalable, mobile, and accessible emergency communications with Microsoft Azure

County emergency services agency protects residents with enhanced information portal

The San Diego County Office of Emergency Services, which serves 3.2 million residents across 4,500 square miles, needed a reliable, scalable way to deliver verified crisis information after its on‑premises website crashed during the 2007 wildfires. The agency also faced the challenge of reaching a diverse population—more than 700,000 Spanish speakers and nearly 82,000 residents who are deaf or hard‑of‑hearing—and ensuring access on mobile devices during power outages.

The agency rebuilt its portal on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Azure, added responsive design, automatic Spanish translations reviewed by staff, American Sign Language videos, audio and large‑text options, and synced updates to the SD Emergency app with push notifications via AlertSanDiego. The cloud solution cut hosting costs by 78%, supports millions of notifications to a database of over 2 million numbers, and has enabled bilingual, accessible updates (69 dual‑language posts since August 2015), giving more residents reliable, real‑time access to emergency information.

San Diego County Office of Emergency Services

Robert Barreras

Senior Emergency Services Coordinator