Evacuation orders and an alarm sound were mistakenly sent to cellphones of residents all over Los Angeles County and beyond on Thursday afternoon. But officials say the widespread alert was an error.
The text message warning was sent to millions of people around 4 p.m. local time, including in places far from where wildfires are burning out of control.
“An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area,” the text message read, in part. It arrived with a loud buzzing sound.
A second alert then followed the first, telling people to disregard the warning and explaining that it was meant only for people near the Kenneth Fire — a new brush fire that ignited Thursday afternoon.
“This warning was intended only 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 proper zones for the alert were correctly selected, and they are looking at the software and troubleshooting. Other alerts have been correctly sent during the windstorm and fires, he noted.
“We do not understand at the moment what caused that error. It wasn’t a human error; the correct zones were initiated,” McGowan told the station. “So we are working to troubleshoot that.”
At a time when many residents of the greater Los Angeles area are already anxious and fearful about the blazes that have engulfed tens of thousands of acres and reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, the erroneous message is likely to have caused panic and fear.
Some recipients took to social media to express their frustration.
“My entire area just got an evacuation Amber alert, which turned out to be for West Hills, not Beverly Hills,” a user wrote on X. “Seriously? As if we’re not already anxiety-ridden enough.”
“I got an evacuation warning phone alert in DTLA for a fire 20+ miles away,” another X user wrote. “The little tech slip ups are going to make things worse.”
Nearly 180,000 people have been forced to evacuate because of the ongoing wildfires. At least six people have died, though authorities have said the total is not yet known.
