Acadia Parish Sheriff Wayne Melancon advises that his department is now a member of Nixle, a professional-grade mass communications system that will allow the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office to communicate directly with a geographically specific portion of the community during times of emergency.

Melancon stated that Nixle has many applications (emergency preparation, emergency recovery, hazardous situations, traffic management, community outreach, missing and wanted person) that will allow his department to share information with residents by text message and or email in real time. Nixle will not replace existing programs such as “A Child is Missing” and the recently developed Face Book page but will be utilized as a additional tool keeping the residents of Acadia Parish informed in real time as to emergency events taking place near their homes.

Nixle completely simple, trusted and available at no cost and is a new community information service provider built exclusively to provide secure and reliable communications. Its authenticated service connects law enforcement agencies and community organizations to residents in real time, delivering information to geographically targeted consumers over their cell phones (via text messages) through e-mails and through web access.

Nixle has secured a partnership with Nlets (the International Justice and Public Safety Network) allowing law enforcement agencies nationwide to send immediate alerts and advisories.

Sheriff Melancon is encouraging interested residents to visit www.nixle.com to register their cell phone number and/or email address. For more information on this new service contact the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office at 788-8700.