TV viewers in the Los Angeles area Wednesday night got the scare of their lives when the Emergency Alert System blasted a warning that all of LA County and the “Eastern North Pacific Ocean” should evacuate. The alert said there was a fire, endangering a very large region.
According to the Ventura County Sheriff, the alert was an “error.”
LA County’s Office of Emergency Management said that they didn’t have an explanation for the mistake.
The alert warned the “Eastern North Pacific” region 12 times to evacuate. It was issued to several counties and the period of danger was from 5:08 pm to 8:08 pm.
It might have scared the daylights out of some, but others found it rather odd.
The Office of Emergency Management said that the National Weather Service transmitted an emergency alert on behalf of LA County, which was requested by the LA Fire Department, in order to evacuate the area due to a “brush fire.”
An emergency alert shouldn’t have been triggered to such a huge area.
Those who were stunned in front of their television sets, if not packing their overnight bags, may not have seen the tweet from the Ventura County Sheriff that said that the alert was an error and there was no emergency and no need to evacuate.
However, there actually was a fire, in Caustic, California in LA County, and it became quite large and serious enough to evacuate people in the area, but not the entire “Eastern North Pacific.”
Legitimately, mandatory evacuations were ordered: “Paradise Ranch Estates Mobile Park, to include: Paradise Estates and all structures south of Templin Highway along Upper Ridge Route Rd, are advised to evacuate north towards Gorman.”
Evacuation alerts were also tweeted by the Santa Clarita County Sheriff for the area of the fire.
The fire caused part of Interstate 5 freeway to be shut down.
One person notably, after seeing the shocking alert on their TV, had the first response of tweeting, “Somebody f’d up somewhere.”
