Panic across LA region after 'erroneous' wildfire evacuation warnings blasted out

As wildfires have raged throughout the Los Angeles region this week, the 10 million residents of LA County have stayed close to their phones, ready for text alerts from officials about whether to pack up their belongings and leave their homes urgently.

On Thursday afternoon, millions of LA-area residents received an evacuation warning that did not specify neighborhood or fire, even though there are at least three major fires burning in the county. It read as follows:

"Emergency Alert. NEW: This is an emergency message from the Los Angeles County Fire Department," the notice read. "An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area. Remain vigilant of any threats and be ready to evacuate. Gather loved ones, pets, and supplies. Continue to monitor local weather, news, and the webpage alertla.org for more information."

The warning reached from Long Beach to the south to north of downtown LA and nearly all points in-between, covering dozens of square miles. The problem? It was a mistake.

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Santa Monica, the LA County coastal city that already endured evacuation orders and warnings due to its proximity to the Palisades inferno, blasted out a tweet responding to the emergency alert and telling residents nothing had changed as of Thursday afternoon.

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By 4:20 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, a new countywide alert was sent, telling residents the previous evacuation warning was sent in error. The message added that it was supposed to only apply to those affected by the Kenneth Fire in far northwest Los Angeles, but the message did not include details about that specific wildfire or its location. Another issue is that the emergency alerts are not saved on most smartphones, meaning they are very difficult to retrieve and reread.

Compounding the Thursday afternoon snafu was that another vague evacuation warning was blasted out Friday morning to LA-area residents dozens of miles from the wildfires, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Kevin McGowan, the director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, apologized in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, saying, "I can't express enough how sorry I am." McGowan said the emergency warnings were automated and no individual or group of people sent them out, adding he did not know the cause of the errors. County IT employees and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials are investigating the matter, McGowan said, pleading with area residents to not disable the warnings in light of the technical issues.

Updated information on the fires can be found on alertla.org, as well as the free app Watch Duty.