(Los Angeles) Several evacuation alerts sent by mistake to residents’ phones sowed “panic” and “confusion” Thursday and Friday in Los Angeles, ravaged by violent fires, according to local authorities.
“There is a great level of frustration, anger, fear about the erroneous messages that have been sent through the online alert system across Los Angeles County. I can’t say enough how sorry I am,” Kevin McGowan, director of the Los Angeles County Office of Crisis Management, said at a press conference.
“I want to express my deep frustration with the alert system that has caused panic and confusion in our community during this time of extreme crisis which, regardless of the cause, is unacceptable,” added Lindsey Horvath, supervisor of a district in Los Angeles County.
The fires that have raged since Tuesday in Los Angeles have killed at least 10 people and led to the evacuation of more than 180,000 people.
A first alert sounded on the phones at 4 p.m. Thursday, saying “an EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your neighborhood.”
PHOTO GREG BEACHAM, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dense smoke was visible Friday in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles.
This first message was corrected by a new alert a few minutes later asking to “disregard the last warning for evacuation”, which concerned the “Kenneth Fire”, one of the fires which broke out in the northwest of the city.
A new alert sounded in the middle of the night at 4 a.m. Friday.
“All technical specialists are working to find the cause and resolve this issue. I implore everyone not to deactivate messages on your phones (…) it is a matter of life and death,” added Mr. McGowan.
For Chris Sheach, professor of disaster management at Paul Smith University, the error “probably comes from a coding problem.”
This is one of the risks of working with technology, but I think the pros far outweigh the cons.
Chris Sheach, professor of disaster management at Paul Smith University
“Previously, our only way of warning for an evacuation was to drive a fire truck through the streets with a megaphone (…) In this case we would not have been able to reach certain streets. There is an instant benefit to using the phone. »
In the case of Los Angeles, we must “recognize our mistakes and continue to build trust in the system,” adds Mr. Sheach.
“These kinds of mistakes under pressure are obvious. But we don’t see the millions of messages around the world each year that are appropriate and arrive on time. »
