As five fires are ravaging Los Angeles, wrong evacuation alerts sent the residents into a frenzy after an alert meant for the Kenneth Fire, which started Thursday, was received by all residents across the county. The LA County said it was an error and it was not triggered by any human action and further investigation is on to find out how the wrong alert was sent. The admission drew ire of the social media users who asked whether anybody is in charge of anything in Los Angeles anymore.
“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. Not receiving an alert can be a consequence of life and death,” the director of the Office of Emergency Management said adding that when people receive such alerts they should verify it on the site to find out if they are in the evacuation warning zone.
“NEW: This is an emergency message from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area. Remain vigilant of any threats and be ready to evacuate. Gather loved ones, pets, and supplies. Continue to monitor local weather, news, and the webpage alertla.org for more information,” the alert sent to everyone in LA County read.
As this sparked a frenzy, Los Angeles County supervisor Janice Hahn clarified promptly that it was a technical error and a new alert was issued. “I have been informed the evacuation warning that many of us just received on our phones was mistakenly issued countywide due to a technical error,” Hahn said.
“Disregard last EVACUATION WARNING. It was for Kenneth Fire Only. AlertLa.org for more information,” the new alert said.
After the first wrong alert on Thursday, another was sent on Friday at 4am. The City of Beverly Hills confirmed the error on Friday morning, stating that there are no such evacuation warnings being made in that area.
“Still getting erroneous alerts from La County. The latest, at 7:30 this morning. All this does in Pasadena is make residents ignore the only system we have. Telling us that the county is aware is not enough. Fix it now please,” one X user wrote,
“For the second time in 24 hours, the LA emergency alert system has sent out an evacuation notice by error. This time at 4 am with an inaccurate link,” another wrote.
“Is anyone in charge of anything in California,” another wrote.