By Kyle Roberts
Lincoln Parish residents can now sign up for the new parish-wide emergency notification system “Linc Alerts” that will be able to send important messages through text, calls or e-mail to those that opt into the system.
This will be essential for Ruston residents to receive notifications, as CodeRED is scheduled to no longer be used as of Jan. 1, 2024.
Residents will need to click this link in order to enroll in the messaging system. After confirming a phone number and e-mail address, residents will be able to select the types of alerts they wish to receive and unselect any type of message or any format that they wish to not be alerted by.
LincAlerts created through RAVE Mobile Safety, which was authorized by the Lincoln Parish Police Jury at the June 2023 meeting.
“In the past, the parish has used Alert FM, which the state was paying for,” Lincoln Parish homeland security director Kip Franklin said. “The state discontinued that contract and it went out after ten years. So we had to look for something different.
“RAVE Mobile Safety has multiple things that we are working with, such as alerts for schools and the panic button app feature. We are setting this up to use for our parish, and each individual municipality can use it for their geo-fenced area.”
Both CodeRED and LincAlerts will be utilized for the remainder of the calendar year before the city of Ruston goes fully with Linc Alerts.
Currently, LincAlerts will only be used for parish-wide messaging, but over the course of the next few months, nearly every municipality in the parish including Ruston is expected to migrate its emergency communication services at the end of the year.
