The Amherst Police Department has partnered with Nixle (www.nixle.com) to bring community notifications to a new level. The system, which is free, allows citizens to sign up for notifications from the Amherst Police Department. Users then decide what type and how many notifications they will receive.  Users can also specify whether they receive the alerts via their text capable cell phone, email, website, or all three.

Nixle’s Municipal Wire is the first standardized, secure, and certified communication platform for local police departments, municipalities, and their agencies to communicate important, neighborhood-level information to the residents of their communities. Nixle's Municipal Wire is available at no cost to residents or police departments, and uses the same compelling model as social applications, such as Twitter and Facebook, while adding the security that is critical to ensure information received by users is Trusted and Accurate.

Residents receive all information immediately by text message, email and web.

Here is a breakdown of what the Amherst Police will be sending:

ALERT ADVISORY: This is the highest level of community notification and will be reserved for very important events. Such notifications will include significant crimes of violence, robberies, bomb incidents, mass evacuations, missing children, significant road closures and major accident and fires.

ADVISORIES: This is the second level of community notification. Items that will be sent include serious accidents, property crimes, vehicle and suspect descriptions, and other minor events that the Amherst Police is involved in.

TRAFFIC: This is the lowest level of community notification and will include planned street closures, traffic updates around town, expected delays due to construction, and other traffic related matters.

COMMUNITY: This notification is reserved for Amherst Police non-breaking news, non-emergency type notifications that may be of interest to the Amherst community.

How do you sign up for this service? First, go to the Nixle website at www.nixle.com. Click on the big blue box that says "Register Here." You then fill out information to create an account at Nixle.  Make sure you use your exact Amherst address.  This will allow you to receive alerts from the Amherst Police.  Make sure you enter your cell phone number so Nixle will know where to send text messages.

Once you sign up (which takes less than three minutes) you will be brought to the "Municipal Wire."  This is the Amherst Police Department's notification area.  Past alerts that have been posted are there.  In the upper right corner, there is an orange box marked "settings."

Click on the orange settings box, and you will be brought to a screen with "Amherst Police Department." Check the boxes if you want alerts sent to both your cell phone and email.  There is also a drop down box to the right, which offers you four choices on the types of alerts you can receive.  To receive every advisory/traffic/community message, select that option. To only receive advisory (alerts), choose that option. It is important to look at this area, as the default setting is only to receive high alerts.

The Amherst Police Department recommends choosing all three options initially, until you decide what level you would like to receive.  Better to have all the information initially, than to miss something happening in your neighborhood.

Once you complete this step, you will be signed up! You can log into the Nixle site at any time to view map locations of incidents or to alter your choices. You can also add other locations to receive notifications from other police departments; however, at the time of this writing, there aren't many agencies in New Hampshire on Nixle. Some out of state agencies include Baltimore, MD, Chicago, IL and Rochester, NY Police. Boston has signed up, but has not posted any alerts. To receive other agencies alerts, simply use the 'add location' button, and type in the exact address in that city.  Follow the same steps as stated above.

If you have trouble creating an account, and would like the Amherst Police Department to create an account for you, please email Sergeant Lance Hult at lhult@amherstnh.gov.  Sgt. Hult will request information from you and then sign you up. Note: this option might take some time, but allows less web-savvy citizens the same service.

The Amherst Police Department remains committed to timely notification to citizens of events that happen in town.  By signing up for Nixle, you can keep abreast of incidents as they occur, even if you aren't in Amherst.  Notifications come directly from the Amherst Police Department, and it keeps citizens "in the loop."