This week, we received word the Township of Lyndhurst was scrapping Nixle alerts in favor of a personalized, township-centric app. It’s been released on both Android and iPhone platforms — you should download it even if you’re not a resident of Lyndhurst — and it’s already clearly a tremendous success.
Here’s a brief look at what it offers:
- A location for families to create an emergency plan.
- A list of local emergency shelters and maps demonstrating how to get to them.
- A spot for any Lyndhurst resident to find assistance for opioid dependency.
- The ability to pay summonses for parking and non-moving violations.
- A registry for the special-needs community.
- Information about local traffic.
- A place to learn about power outages.
- Evacuation routes in case of an emergency.
- The ability to learn more about the township’s Community Emergency Response (CERT) Team.
- Local township news briefs.
- A spot to report street-light outages.
- The ability to deliver anonymous crime tips to the Lyndhurst PD.
- A place to review all recently-issued alerts.
- Weather, including a 7-day forecast.
The app — which is 100% free — is extremely comprehensive and came about because of forward thinking by Mayor Robert Giangeruso and the township’s Office of Emergency Management.
Residents now have a one-stop location to go on mobile phones and tablets for important services. But most importantly, when, like just last week, the nighttime skies turned a bizarre shade of blue on account of a Queens Con Edison transformer fire, there is a need to disseminate information in rapid succession, so long as residents have the app, the information will be readily available.
While the Nixle format is, indeed, beneficial, the new format Lyndhurst has adopted makes sense and is most economical. (The North Arlington school district also has something similar — and that app is also very well formatted and beneficial.)
It is our hope leaders in other Observer towns take time to review the Lyndhurst app because residents of other towns would benefit from such technology.
And in the new year, we hope other towns ultimately follow Lyndhurst’s suit.
Well done, Mayor Giangeruso and the Lyndhurst OEM.
Well done, indeed.
