A software error led to widespread confusion among millions of Los Angeles County residents who received an evacuation-warning message shortly after the Kenneth fire erupted in Woodland Hills, according to a report released by the office of U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, on Monday, May 12.
The error has since been fixed, but additional funding and oversight of the wireless-alert system is needed to prevent it from occurring again, the report says.
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The text-like message was sent to the cellphones of residents throughout Los Angeles County on Jan. 9 shortly after the Kenneth fire started during a heavy windstorm that had two days earlier sparked the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires that destroyed thousands of homes and other structures and claimed dozens of lives.
Forward progress of the Kenneth fire was stopped by the following morning after it blackened about 1,000 acres, and contained two days later, officials said. It did not damage or destroy any structure.
The message was meant for residents of only Calabasas and Agoura Hills as the fire was spreading west in their direction. Twenty minutes later, the county sent out another alert correcting the error and clarifying that the warning was for only the Kenneth fire evacuation area, the report says.
The following day, Kevin McGowan, director of the county Office of Emergency Management, said that a computer issue was the cause of the erroneous message and that officials quickly began working to fix it.
And then another message was sent in error.
“The Kenneth fire false alert was a wake-up call,” Garcia said in a Monday statement. “It showed the consequences of software failures, vague message wording, and a lack of federal standards. We must modernize our emergency-alert systems to ensure that warnings are accurate, timely and targeted. The public’s trust is at stake.”
The erroneous messages were sent because an accurate evaluation-area element hadn’t been uploaded to the federal public-alert-and-warning system. Genasys Inc., which oversees the alerts, failed to notify the county that the element was missing, so the alert was sent to about 10 million people rather than the targeted neighborhoods, the report says.
The company said it believed the error was due to a possible network disruption, but did not elaborate, the report says.
Genasys has since added safeguards to correct the issue, the report said, including a warning to the user when the element is missing, the report says.
The report suggests the county could improve the wording of alert messages to make them more clear, including naming the area instead of telling residents the warning was issued “for your area.”
The report also suggests maps should be included.
The suggested additional funding would go toward planning, equipment, training, exercises and system maintenance, according to Garcia’s office.