HOBOKEN -- Last week Hoboken officials unveiled Nixle, a type of emergency alert system. Nixle allows residents to sign up for e-mails and text message announcements when there is an emergency. The system can be used for both city-wide and community-specific alerts.

“The beauty of this system is that it allows us to target who gets which messages,” said Patrick Ricciardi, Hoboken’s deputy OEM coordinator. “Let’s say there’s a power outage in your building while you’re at work. We can send alerts just the residents of that building. They can make appropriate plans to stay over at a friend’s house or take home extra water.”

It took the city six months to get Nixle, which is being paid for by the company, not Hoboken taxpayers, Ricciardi stated. Visit http://local.nixle.com/city-of-hoboken/to sign up for alerts.

Meanwhile, plans to implement a citywide system of 50 loudspeakers in case of an emergency – plans that were approved in 2008 –are temporarily on hold, Ricciardi said.

“The speakers are in place, but there are some legal issues that need to be resolved,” he said. “We hope to resolve those issues by the end of this fiscal year and implement our Early Emergency Response System next [fiscal] year.”