The Municipality of Anchorage is changing how it sends alerts to the public about weather, traffic and other emergencies.
City officials announced Thursday that they will begin using Rave Mobile Safety next week to send text message and email updates from state and local authorities, including Anchorage police and fire.
Anchorage Emergency Programs manager Audrey Gray said the new system will replace the old one, called Nixle, but they both work similarly. She said Rave does have a new mapping feature.
“So we can actually target messaging to a particular neighborhood if only that neighborhood is affected by whatever is happening,” Gray said.
Gray said Rave also includes a feature for polling community members.
“So if we want to see if there are needs of the community that we’re just not aware of, we can send a polling question out for people to actually respond to that,” she said.
Gray said the new system will cost the city roughly $43,000 for the first year, about $12,000 more than Nixle. However, she said, that’s due to start-up costs and training, and the cost should be comparable to Nixle in the future.
Residents who are currently signed up with Nixle will not automatically be switched over to Rave. To sign up, text the word “Anchorage” to “67283” or use this link.
The city’s contract with Nixle will end on Jan. 1, with Rave coming online on Jan. 2.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
