SAN DIEGO - County supervisors unanimously and eagerly approved spending $200,000 Tuesday on a new high-tech, high-speed, Internet-based messaging system that could send evacuation notices or emergency instructions to every household in the county within three hours.

Officials said the new system, created by Ohio-based Twenty First Century Communications will be faster, more flexible, and much cheaper than the Reverse 911 emergency alert system the county has operated since 2005. Officials said that the county's 18 cities and local agencies could also use the system for free.

"All I can say is this is one heck of a deal," Supervisor Dianne Jacob said. "This is a huge leap forward into the future to better protect lives and property in the San Diego County region for every single man, woman and child."

County officials said that the existing 911 system cost the county roughly $500,000 - and Supervisor Pam Slater-Price said that one of the companies the county looked at in its search to upgrade wanted $3.5 million.

County spokeswoman Holly Crawford said Twenty First Century's $200,000 base bid was chosen from 12 companies over a four-month process conducted by a selection committee of county managers from five departments and the cities of San Diego and Escondido.

She said in addition to the $200,000 purchase cost, the system would cost about $19,000 a year to maintain.

Crawford said the company's systems were already being used by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Security Exchange Commission, the Los Angeles Water Authority, the city of Santa Clarita and county of Riverside.

Crawford said that unlike the county's current Reverse 911 system, the new system could send emergency messages not just over telephone land lines, but via cellular phones, e-mail, text messages, pagers, fax machines, personal digital assistants.

And, she said, unlike the current system - which is contained in three separate computer-like machines around the county - the new system was Internet based. Crawford said that means authorized personnel such as police and fire chiefs, public health officers and other emergency responders would be able to enter and use the system over their computers or cellular phones.

Supervisors first became interested in buying a high-speed emergency telephone notification system after the 2003 Cedar and Paradise wildfires, which killed 16 people and destroyed more than 2,400 homes.

The county bought the Reverse 911 system in 2005, and sheriff's officials said Tuesday that the system had been successfully used "four or five times" since then - most recently to issue evacuation notices to East County residents in the Millar fire three weeks ago that shut down portions of Highway 94.

Supervisors voted a year ago to search for a possible replacement system because they believed technological advancements might have improved the systems on the market.

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