Towns Turn to Technology to Get the Word Out

Along with the rest of Bergen County, Fort Lee saw more than its fair share of severe weather emergencies in 2011. There was the Palm Sunday nor'easter, Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and Snowtober.

Throughout each weather event, where power failed, new technology proved successful in connecting emergency services to the residents of many Bergen County towns. Area residents were updated on power outages and evacuations through services such as Nixle and other web-based notification services designed for use by local police departments, emergency management offices, municipal governments and their agencies.

In addition to providing information during extreme weather events, more towns are turning to Nixle and other notification providers to help communicate to their residents local road closings, traffic alerts and crime information. Recently, River Edge used Nixle to notify subscribers of major road work; Paramus used it to report a major accident and traffic situation on Route 17; Fort Lee used it to report extreme wind conditions on the George Washington Bridge; and Fairview used it to notify area residents about burglary activity. 

Nixle CEO Eric Liu told Patch, "We do one thing. We push messages out from public agencies and we put all of our resources into making sure that happens seamlessly."

Nixle's publishing service allows verified government agencies to send messages to local residents via phone text messages, email and web. Information is delivered almost instantly to a subscriber's specific geographic area and any other geographic area of your choosing. (An added benefit if you have family, especially parents, that live in other areas.)

The genesis of Nixle began in New Jersey.

According to Liu, "We were trying to do what Patch is doing—create a hyperlocal news site for the dissemination of government information."

In this quest, they were "shocked" by the positive reception of their service and decided to focus solely on being the conduit for local governments and agencies to communicate information in near real-time to residents. 

"Trust is paramount with government agencies," Liu said. "We've built that trust and we value this with all of the public service agencies who use our service."

Liu is proud that Nixle has outpaced Facebook and Twitter in getting public safety agencies to utilize their service.

"Government agencies want the audience reach of Facebook and Twitter, but they need the security that Nixle provides," Liu said. 

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Liu explained that everyone subscribed to Nixle must be a verified user—no false names or anonymous log-ons.

"Police departments can't afford to be hacked and requiring verified users reduces the risk of hacking."

Nixle is currently operating in all 50 states, with over 4,600 government and public safety agencies signed on. Liu said that Hawaii and Alaska rely heavily upon Nixle because of their remote locations.

"It's a way to connect them to the continental 48," Liu said. 

Nixle and gov-interact are available to residents at no cost—it's completely free to the user. These services allow subscribers to have messages texted to their phones, email or both.