Crime & Safety

Want to Stay Informed in an Emergency?

Cinnaminson is now part of the Nixle network, the largest emergency notification system of its kind in the country.

Cinnaminson Township just made it a whole lot easier to stay informed during an emergency.

Starting Tuesday, the Cinnaminson Police Department began using Nixle, an emergency notification system used by thousands of agencies across the country. The system—launched in Voorhees, NJ in 2009—will give the police department and the township the ability to send messages to residents for everything from severe weather alerts to traffic notifications using text messages, emails and landlines. 

Spokesman Jim Gatta outlined the system’s selling points to township committee Tuesday, particularly its reliability.

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Nixle has never gone down, Gatta said. Even at the height of Hurricane Sandy, Nixle’s alert system continued to keep subscribers informed.

“When other systems were going down during Hurricane Sandy, we did not fail at all,” he said. “We had schools who would call police departments up and down New Jersey and say, ‘Could you please send out a message on our behalf because our system is down?’”

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Nixle’s consistency is largely due to the fact that it channels its information through Nlets—an international public safety information network used by a massive network of law enforcement agencies across the country—which itself never crashes.

Cinnaminson already uses Global Connect, an alert system that allows agencies to robocall residents’ landlines in the event of an emergency.

Cinnaminson Public Safety Director Mickey King said Nixle—which is free for the township—is “another tool in our toolbox to connect with our residents and share information to  continue to build strong partnerships.”

Gatta explained that messages sent out via Nixle come in three varieties: alerts, which are usually used for more urgent information, i.e. severe weather; advisories, for things like traffic notifications; and community notifications, which are more innocuous. Subscribers can determine which messages they receive and how, depending on the method they use to sign up.

Gatta said there are several ways for Cinnaminson residents to sign up to receive messages:

  • Text your zip code (08077) to 888777 and you’ll be automatically subscribed to text messages sent out by the township.
  • Download the Nixle smartphone application.
  • The township has the ability to add a registration widget to its website, which asks for residents’ mobile phone number, email address and zip code. (The township’s website is in the process of being updated.)
  • Sign up at Nixle.com. Gatta said this is the “most robust way” for residents to sign up, as it gives them more freedom to customize what kind of messages they want to receive and how they want to receive them.
Gatta said the system is secure—neither Nixle nor the township can see the information residents use to sign up—and, most importantly, it works.

"Just doing a quick search, you’ll see tons of people found, bad guys arrested," he said. "And we really do feel Nixle is an asset to the community and we’re very happy to have Cinnaminson Township on board."


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