SAN DIEGO -- As hundreds of thousands of people started safely returning to their evacuated communities Thursday, officials continued to praise the high-speed telephone alert systems that helped spur residents to flee oncoming fires.

"We moved about 513,000 people," said Harold Tuck, general manager of the county of San Diego's public safety group.

"That's more than the population of New Orleans at the time of (Hurricane) Katrina. We evacuated hundreds of thousands of people -- without anybody getting hurt."

County spokeswoman Holly Crawford said that since Sunday, officials sent 357,851 prerecorded evacuation "land line" calls to households in the county and affected cities using the county's two high-speed alert systems: Reverse 911 and "Alert San Diego."

During the devastating, weeklong Cedar and Paradise firestorms in October 2003 -- before the county bought its high-speed alert systems -- officials evacuated 50,000 people, fewer than a tenth of the current number.

County officials decided to buy a high-speed notification system because of complaints about how evacuations were handled in those fires.

This week, fire and emergency response officials said other factors contributed to the current evacuation efforts. The event occurred during the day; television and radio media quickly started carrying evacuation alerts and there was effective coordination between the public and law enforcement agencies.

"Really, I think it's a combination of the machines and the timing. The Cedar fire happened in the middle of the night and there wasn't a lot of awareness," said Matt Streck, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

"In this case, the fires, they all started in the morning or during the day," he said. "Everybody was aware, and we were able to get the message out."

Walt Ekard, the county's chief administrative officer, said agencies worked better together after experiencing the 2003 fires.

"The coordination here has been so much better," he said, "between us and law enforcement, fire officials, the media. I think it's a combination of things. In Ramona, there was that huge traffic jam. But that's 45,000 people, and no one was injured. I think we've been pretty pleased."

Sheriff Bill Kolender said he thought another thing that made the evacuations work was that people started taking the calls more seriously as the fires wore on.

All of them said the high-speed alert systems made a big difference, placing evacuation calls in the morning, afternoon -- even the middle of the night.

Many fire victims of the 2003 disaster complained they never received evacuation warnings. Others said they got warnings so late that they had no time to collect their thoughts, let alone their belongings.

Traditionally, sheriff's deputies are charged with coordinating evacuations by "pounding on doors" or driving down streets with bullhorns. But in 2003, there were only two sheriff's deputies in Valley Center and three in Ramona when the Paradise and Cedar fires roared to life in the early morning hours.

The Reverse 911 system, officials said when the county bought it in 2005, could send up to 384 calls per minute to people's homes -- far faster than knocking on doors or driving individual streets. County officials said this year that the system had cost the county about $500,000. That system can only place calls on "land line" telephones, and not cellular phones.

But in July, the county buttressed its Reverse 911 system, spending $200,000 on an Internet-based messaging system made by Ohio-based Twenty First Century that eventually will be able to send messages over land lines, cell phones, fax machines and personal digital assistants. That system is so fast it could send an alert to every household in the county in three hours. San Diego officials have dubbed that system "Alert San Diego."

Ellen Grevey, a spokeswoman for the Twenty First Century, said company officials, who had been also working around the clock to support the county's efforts during the fires, were saddened by the tragedy of the fires.

"But we're very glad that it (notification system) seems to be working so well," she said.

Tuck said he recognized that other factors helped make this week's evacuations run effectively. But he said the biggest reason so many people had been able to be evacuated so quickly was the high-speed alert system.

"We've evacuated people out of harm's way during the day and at night," he said. "That phone is going to ring and ring, whether it's four in the morning, or four in the afternoon."

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.