Los Angeles County officials are investigating the cause of erroneous evacuation warnings being sent to L.A. County residents amid the ongoing wildfires in the region.
“There is an extreme amount of frustration, anger, fear with regards to the erroneous messages that have been being sent out through the wireless emergency alert system across LA County,” said Kevin McGowan, director of the county’s Office of Emergency Management, at a press conference on Friday morning.
McGowan apologized for the erroneous alerts.
“This is not human-driven,” McGowan told reporters. “There is no one sitting at a desk right now initiating emergency alerts. Right now, as these alerts are being issued, they are not being activated or initiated by a person.”
McGowan said this issue is his top priority, and he’s working “all hands on deck” with FEMA to identify the cause of the alerts. Every “technical specialist” is working to resolve the issue and find the root cause, McGowan asserted.
An L.A. TACO staff member and contributor received evacuation warning alerts early Friday morning that read: “An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area. Remain vigilant of any threats and be ready to evacuate.”
Javier Cabral, L.A. TACO’s editor-in-chief, and his wife, cooking writer Paola Briseño González, were alerted 20 minutes apart. González received the alert at 3:11 AM, and then later, Cabral received the message.
“I stayed up for an hour and checked to see if neighbors were up too,” Cabral said. “Didn’t see much movement, so [I] fell back asleep.”
“So if not human, what is it then?” Cabral questioned. “Cry wolf kinda shit.”
Longtime L.A. TACO contributor Erwin Recinos said he got an alert on his phone at around 5:50 AM.
“I was just waking up for work, so I did my checks, he said.
Recinos and his family live near Turnbull and Sycamore Canyon in Whittier, so they’ve been worried that those areas will go up in flames.
McGowan encouraged people not to disable emergency messages on their phones.
“These alert tools have saved lives during this emergency,” McGowan said. “Not receiving an alert can be a consequence of life and death.”
The Office of Emergency Management director recommends that if you get an alert, verify if you’re in an evacuation zone through alertla.org, lacounty.org/emergency, or by dialing 211 for assistance.
“The mapping is accurate,” McGowan said.
In a Friday afternoon press release, the Office of Emergency Management said their preliminary investigation found “that these recurring erroneous notifications are due to issues with telecommunications systems, likely due to the fires’ impacts on cellular towers.”
The office added that they are “working actively with FEMA and industry partners to identify and resolve these issues.”
Genasys, a vendor operating the software for the county’s emergency alert messaging system, is also testing to determine how a notification was accidentally sent to 10 million residents on Wednesday.
The company said that on Friday, it added “safeguards” to its software, according to the Office of Emergency Management press release.
The agency said it is switching all local emergency notifications to the CalOES alert system until they have assurances that this problem has been resolved.
Officials urge L.A. County residents to sign up for Alert L.A. County notifications immediately. You can sign up here.
Additionally, the county is “ramping up 211 service” to help residents who call in looking for information on the fires.
This is a developing story…
