BUCKHANNON — Upshur County residents should be advised the Upshur County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management has replaced Nixle with a new emergency alerting system.

This system will be used to disburse all emergency notifications and other important messages. This system is known as the IPAWS verified Wireless Emergency Notification System.

Messages can be issued via landline or wireless phone, text messaging, email, TDD/TTY and social media when an urgent county alert needs to be communicated. Residents may select which emergency alerts and notifications they would like to receive.

Upshur County director of HSEM Brian Shreves said the system has the capacity to alert residents of pending emergencies, regardless of whether a DHSEM is available to post an update.

“The new system is more updated and allows for automatic posts,” Shreves said Friday. “So when the National Weather Service puts out a weather warning, the system automatically picks it up and generates the message, even if we’re not able to do it, it will do it automatically.

“It will also work better for us for internal messaging and communication,” Shreves added.

The Upshur County DHSEM is urging all residents to sign up for this free service.

To sign up, please text UpshurCoWVAlerts to 69310 or visit http://entry.inspironlogistics.com/upshur_wv/wens.cfm.