SAN FRANCISCO--As they hunker down during Hurricane Sandy, East Coast residents can receive authoritative, real-time bulletins on their mobile phones from police, fire and other public safety agencies through Nixle, a free messaging service.
People can sign up by simply texting their zip code to 888777 or by subscribing for free at Nixle.com. They then will receive authorized alerts directly on their mobile phones or SMS-enabled devices, as long as their batteries are charged.
Nixle uses a proprietary platform that allows participating police, fire and emergency agencies to send secure and authenticated real-time alerts. More than 6,000 agencies nationwide have signed up for Nixle, using it as their primary form of electronic outreach. These agencies prefer Nixle because, unlike other popular social media sites, each agency's account is verified and only urgent bulletins appear on subscriber phones.
More than 1 million citizens now subscribe to Nixle. Since midnight Friday, Nixle has seen a tenfold increase in new subscribers and a 50 percent jump in alerts sent by agencies. During the past 72 hours, these public safety agencies have sent 1,500 alerts.
"We are seeing extraordinary interest in Nixle as the storm approaches," said Eric Liu, CEO of the San Francisco-based company. "Many of our agency partners have been using us for several years now. This storm, however, is generating record traffic because people know that they are receiving authoritative information from verified public-safety agencies."