Fire alerts: LA fire officials plead with public to keep emergency notifications on despite erroneous alerts

Los Angeles County residents have received multiple incorrect evacuation alerts on their cellphones, causing significant frustration, anger, and fear, according to LA County Office of Emergency Management Director Kevin McGowan.

The mishap occurred when an alert intended for the areas near the Kenneth Fire was mistakenly broadcasted to 10 million people, encompassing Calabasas and West Hills.

Furthermore, in the early hours of Friday, an erroneous evacuation notification was sent out at around 4 a.m. to Beverly Hills residents. However, the Beverly Hills police department and city authorities quickly clarified that no evacuations were in effect for the area at that time.

The cause is under investigation and McGowan stressed at a news conference Friday that the alerts were not “human driven.”

McGowan explained the alerts are supposed to go into an aggregator that then is supposed to send them out automatically. They believe there’s an error somewhere in that system.

Even though the erroneous messages are “painful” and “scary,” he implored the public to not disable their phone’s emergency alerts.

“These alert tools have saved lives during this emergency,” he said. “I can’t express enough how sorry I am for this experience.”

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