Nova Scotia Emergency Alert
Emergencies can happen fast. Nova Scotia Emergency Alert is an emergency public alerting app that sends critical information during events and community notices.
Nova Scotia Emergency Alert (NS Alert) is the Government of Nova Scotia’s emergency public alerting system that sends critical information during events (like floods, hurricanes, wildfires and public safety risks). It also sends community notices (like water advisories and major road closures). With NS Alert, you know you’ll have the up-to-date information you need during an emergency.
Download the app
NS Alert is free. It’s available for iOS and Android.
You can also open your Apple App store or Google Play store and search “NS Alert” and download the app.
How the app works
NS Alert works seamlessly with Canada’s national alert system – Alert Ready – and expands coverage to reach people on 3G networks or on a Wi-Fi signal, giving more people across Nova Scotia access to potentially life-saving information.
Once you download NS Alert, make sure you open the application and follow the directions provided. You need to select ‘Allow’ to give NS Alert permission to send alerts.
Search and select locations that apply to you (like your home, work, church, municipalities or any other areas you’re interested in). You will then receive alerts that are issued for that geographic area.
You can also turn on/off alert categories based on type, severity and sound level.
Learn more: NS Alert App (YouTube)
Notification options
You can choose your notification options or combination of options that are right for you. You can:
- customize your alerts by choosing the communities you want information on
- select the levels of alerts you want to receive
- set your preferred language – the app gives the option to translate alerts to your preferred language
- get alerts for other locations you travel to, even if it’s not one of your chosen locations
How NS Alert works with Alert Ready
NS Alert augments Alert Ready (Canada’s national alert system). It helps fill in 3 main gaps:
- NS Alert works on 3G or a Wi-Fi signal, giving more people access to potentially life-saving information (Alert Ready requires people to have LTE or 5G coverage, which many rural areas don’t have)
- NS Alert can also provide non-intrusive alerts for things like re-entry after an evacuation and road closures
- NS Alert also provides the option to translate alerts (up to 32 languages)
Broadcast intrusive and non-broadcast intrusive alerts
There are 2 different styles of alerts. Broadcast intrusive alerts require people to do something (like when there’s a potentially life-threatening issue happening).
Non-broadcast intrusive alerts require people to prepare to do something and be aware of something.
Alerts from NS Alert and Alert Ready
If you have NS Alert installed and connected to an LTE or 5G network at the time of a broadcast-intrusive alert, you will receive 2 alerts: one from Alert Ready and one from NS Alert.
For the areas that are not covered by Alert Ready, you would only get one alert from NS Alert.
While NS Alert can integrate with Alert Ready to relay alerts through SMS, email, phone calls and apps, it doesn’t have the capability to detect or suppress alerts if they’ve already been received through Alert Ready.