LOS ANGELES (AP) — A technological glitch caused an emergency alert to be mistakenly sent to millions of Los Angeles County residents in January rather than only those in the proximity of a wildfire, according to a congressional report.
The mistaken alert on Jan. 9 came as residents were on edge two days after fierce winds and deadly wildfires ripped across Los Angeles County hillsides and burned through communities. The alert message was only supposed to go to residents in the San Fernando Valley facing an evacuation warning due to the Kenneth Fire.
The report issued Monday by Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach found that Los Angeles County officials properly coded the alert to reach the wireless devices of a more limited group of people. But the alert was sent to residents across the county of 10 million people, and without specific geographic information, prompting concern and confusion after two days of devastating wildfires.
That’s because the coding for the precise location didn’t get saved into the IPAWS federal channel for local emergency alerts, which software provider Genasys believed might be due to a network disruption, the report said. “The initial false alert is believed to be caused by technology issues with third-party technology vendor Genasys,” the report said.
The report did not address how emergency alerts were handled in the Eaton and Palisades fires.
In the Eaton Fire in Altadena, evacuation orders went out long after houses were reported burning. LA County officials have launched their own independent review, led by a third party, of evacuation policies and the emergency alert system. An initial report released last month said nearly three dozen people who responded to the fires had been interviewed and more interviews were planned. The next report on the review is expected by July 27.
In the Palisades fire, residents said they received notification about the blaze on their phones well after they could see it coming and decided on their own to leave, reporting by The Associated Press found.
Garcia’s report suggested that Los Angeles County officials could use more location-specific language in the text of warnings so residents know where they are intended for, and the need for enhanced training and standardized software to prevent issues like the faulty alert issued in connection with the Kenneth Fire.
“The lessons from the Kenneth Fire should not only inform reforms, but serve as a catalyst to modernize the nation’s alerting infrastructure before the next disaster strikes,” the report said.
