Emergency Management: Civil Emergency Alert Sent By Accident

[Maverick]

An oops moment... It works! ...sort of

"A mixture of human and computer error caused a "Civil Emergency" alert to be sent to thousands of cell phones in Southern Kentucky Tuesday, the Kentucky Emergency Management office said.

There was never an emergency and the alert was sent out during testing at the Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort, spokesman Buddy Rogers said.

According to Rogers, during the testing on Tuesday a computer error, followed by a human error caused the alert to be sent the to people in the Corbin and London areas of Southern Kentucky.

The alert was only sent to cell phones via the Federal Communication Commission's Wireless Emergency Alert system, Rogers said.

According to the FCC, the Wireless Emergency Alert system is a public safety system that allows customers who own certain wireless phone models and other enabled mobile devices to receive geographically-targeted, text-like messages alerting them of imminent threats to safety in their area.

The Emergency Operations Center said they sent out another alert saying their was no emergency shortly after the first alert"

http://www.wtvq.com/story/d/story/e...sent-by-accident/20732/OyCi2jG6XUCQ6xtlK3VzNw

 

[jimLE]

i know that situations like that can happen by accident..but dont that beat all?

 

[jontte]

but look on the bright side of it...they can reach you if needed
a few extra heart beats was probably the result of it in this case..

 

[Gazrok]

Here, where tornado warnings can come out of the blue due to strong storms (even though our tornadoes are weak)...it's a nice feature to have. Once, I was driving on the bridge, and saw an alert about a waterspout out in the bay. Sure enough, just saw it a moment later (though it never went near the bridge).