More erroneous emergency alerts raise frustrations
More erroneous evacuation alerts were sent to tens of thousands of residents overnight, prompting frustration and waves of criticism from people already on edge from the Southern California wildfires, but officials are not yet sure what caused those errors.
Kevin McGowan, director of the county Office of Emergency Management, stressed during a news conference Friday morning that the alerts are "not human driven."
"There is no one sitting at a desk right now initiating emergency alerts," McGowan said. "... They are not being activated or initiated by a person."
He said he is coordinating with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to "resolve this issue and find the root cause."
The first erroneous alert was sent around 4 p.m. Thursday, shortly after the Kenneth Fire broke out in the West Hills area. The alert about evacuation warnings was only supposed to be sent to people in the affected area near that fire, but instead, it was sent to cell phones throughout most of the county, including residents in the South Bay, the Westside, downtown Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, even as far away as Orange County.
A short time after that, another message was sent telling residents who weren't in the affected area to disregard it.
However, another erroneous message was sent out around 4 a.m. Friday, again intended for people in the Kenneth Fire burn area but transmitted instead to people across the region, even in San Bernardino County.
McGowan on Friday morning said "this is my top priority" to determine what technical error is causing the erroneous alerts.
"I implore everyone to not disable the messages on your phone. This is extremely frustrating, painful and scary, but these alert tools have saved lives during this emergency," he said. "Not receiving an alert can be a consequence of life and death."
McGowan suggested that people who receive the alerts go online to verify the information at alertla.org or lacounty.gov/emergency, or call 211.
County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, however, expressed frustration at the situation Friday morning, noting that people shouldn't have to go online to verify emergency alerts.
"It is frustrating because we are asking people to trust us," Barger said, adding that the problem needs to be fixed immediately.
City News Service contributed to this report.
