An accidental emergency alert sent to Florida residents’ cell phones at 4:45 a.m. on Thursday prompted a public outcry, a contract cancellation by the state and an inquiry from the Federal Communications Commission.
According to a tweet by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the test of the emergency alert system was meant to be broadcast to televisions. Instead, it was sent to the mobile phones of millions of Florida residents.
Some of those folks promptly took to Twitter to complain or urge others to turn off the “emergency alert” feature on their mobile phones—which would hinder the ability to notify people of an actual emergency. Before the end of the day, news came that the state of Florida had cancelled its contract with Everbidge, the software company who handled the alert, and FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a tweet that the FCC was “looking into this.”
Although the alert was an error, Rosenworcel tweeted, “errors like this erode trust in the emergency alerting system. They are not acceptable. The FCC is looking into this in order to get to the bottom of it.”
“What happened in Florida is more than a public inconvenience. Critical mass notification systems are designed to protect people in times of emergencies,” commented Richard Danforth, CEO of Genasys, which provides critical communications and emergency alert solutions, in a statement provided to RCR Wireless News. “Testing is a critical part of making sure response plans and systems work as intended. It is incumbent on all of us to ensure people don’t lose trust in the agencies and the very systems that are there to keep us out of harm’s way when disasters happen.”
