Evacuation alert sent in error to nearly 10 million L.A. area residents

Evacuation orders and an alarm sound were mistakenly sent to the cell phones of residents throughout Los Angeles County and beyond on Thursday afternoon. But officials say the widespread alert was a mistake.

The text message warning was sent to millions of people around 4 p.m. local time, including in places far from where wildfires are raging out of control.

“An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area,” the text message read, in part. It came with a loud hum.

A second alert then followed the first, telling people to ignore the warning and explaining that it was intended only for people near the Kenneth Fire, a new wildfire that started Thursday afternoon.

“This warning was intended solely for residents of Calabasas and Agoura Hills, and those within the West Hills community of Los Angeles,” Kevin McGowan, director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, said in a statement. .

Instead, it was mistakenly sent to nearly 10 million people, McGowan said.

“We understand that these wildfires have created great anxiety, hardship and distress among our residents, and we are committed to sharing accurate information,” he said in the statement.

McGowan told NBC Los Angeles in a phone interview during live coverage Thursday that the appropriate zones for the alert were correctly selected and that they are reviewing the software and troubleshooting issues. Other alerts were successfully sent during wind storms and fires, he noted.

“We don’t understand at this time what caused that error. It was not human error; the correct zones were initiated,” McGowan told the station. “So we’re working on it.”

At a time when many residents of the Los Angeles metropolitan area are already anxious and fearful about the fires that have consumed tens of thousands of acres and reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, the wrong message has likely caused panic and fear.

Some recipients took to social media to express their frustration.

“My entire area just received an Amber Evacuation Alert, which turned out to be for West Hills, not Beverly Hills,” one user wrote on X. “Really? As if we weren’t already anxious enough.”

“Received an evacuation warning phone alert in DTLA for a fire over 20 miles away,” another X user wrote. “Small tech errors are going to make things worse.”

Nearly 180,000 people have been forced to evacuate due to ongoing wildfires. At least six people have died, although authorities have said the total is not yet known.



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *