Technical glitch tells all of Los Angeles County they should evacuate immediately
Angelenos may have already felt like they were living in a hellscape with the seemingly endless growth of wildfires but residents had the Bejesus scared out of them this week when an unexplained technical glitch sent an erroneous evacuation warning to the entire County.
Millions of people received the notification reading:
“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.”
That message was quickly retracted, but not before scaring millions of people.
"An evacuation order for residents near the Kenneth Fire currently burning in West Hills was mistakenly issued to nearly 10 million County residents along with some residents of neighboring counties,” said Kevin McGowan, Director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management. “This warning was intended only for residents of Calabasas and Agoura Hills and those within the West Hills community of Los Angeles. We understand that these wildfires have created great anxiety, hardship and distress among our residents, and we are committed to sharing accurate information. For updates on wildfires currently burning in LA County, including evacuation information, please visit lacounty.gov/emergency."
The need to evacuate the West Hills community was real and County officials said the people in charge of the system entered the correct information into the alert system. However, an unknown technical glitch caused the system to malfunction and deliver the message countywide.
Evacuation alerts have become all too common for individuals living near any of the many active fires. They come via cell phone, accompanied by a deliberately screeching tone and have the same general formatting. They usually identify a specific location and provide directions to leave.
Establishing an evacuation that necessitates a warning is multi-agency endeavor.
For the nearby Palisades Fire, Cal Fire is the lead agency and a command post with multi-agency representation is established to support a coordinated response with the primary focus of saving lives and property.
The City of Santa Monica has an Emergency Operations Center that is in constant and consistent communication and coordination with Palisades Fire’s assigned Cal Fire Incident Management Team and regional partners to evaluate situational awareness and needs of the city. The City has no say in if an evacuation will be declared but does levy local resources to help organize and execute an evacuation.
City Hall said evacuation zones are put in place in the case of an active fire threat. Should an active fire meet established thresholds in location and conditions such as wind direction, wind speed, weather conditions, landscape, and should these thresholds be favorable for the active fire to threaten lives and/or property in an area, then an evacuation order and/or warning will be put in place.
For Santa Monica, the decision to implement or change a Santa Monica evacuation zone is a decision made in agreement by Santa Monica Office of Emergency Management, Police, and Fire Departments with the support of Cal Fire Incident Management Team, and coordination with LA County and LA City.
Those zones will remain for as long as the safety professionals deem it necessary.
“We have seen fires throughout Los Angeles County grow at a rapid pace as high winds have carried fire embers downwind to new areas where spot fires are ignited and spread under dry and windy conditions and spread large distances through wind-cast ember,” said Public Information Officer Tati Simonian. “Today, fire officials stress that the community maintain its vigilance as wind speeds are expected to increase significantly overnight. A Red Flag Warning is still in effect and wind anticipated to come in today at 40 mph in Santa Monica and at even higher speeds in canyon areas. Because these conditions continue to persist, there has been no change in the evacuation zones.”
While notifications of a real evacuation are vital to saving lives, this week’s false alarm undermined confidence in the system.
When pressed on the issue, Sheriff Robert Luna acknowledged the problem but said in the face of the unprecedented complexity and chaos of the current situation, everyone is doing the best they can.
“Under these very stressful scenarios that our entire community is going through, that's the last thing that we want to happen,” he said. “But in this day and age, we depend on technology, and sometimes technology isn't perfect.”
He said he had confidence that the problem would be fixed and that the County remained committed to accurate communication, including the regular briefings
“We don't want to repeat it. Personally, my daughter called me and said, ‘Oh my god, I think I have to evacuate.’ And I said, ‘Honey, no, you don't have to.’ I get it. It's not what we wanted to go out, but we're going to try and fix it.”
