The Los Angeles City Emergency Management Department said an emergency alert to phones warning residents of possible evacuations was sent to the entire county by mistake, adding evacuation orders have not changed.
Recent @ReadyLACounty alert to evacuate was sent in ERROR. Evacuation orders have not changed. See map for actual @LACity evacuation orders for some selected areas, ONLY! https://t.co/qRYmG0qWS7
— LA City Emergency Management Department (@ReadyLA) January 10, 2025
"I have been informed the evacuation warning that many of us just received on our phones was mistakenly issued countywide due to a technical error," the Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said on X.
A "correction" alert, including the blaring tone, was issued a few minutes later, explaining that the warning was specifically for a fire burning in the West Hills area, not to the entire county's nearly 10 million residents. The alerts have been more frequent than usual in the last week due to a destructive Santa Ana windstorm that fanned wildfires in the county, six of which were burning Thursday.
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In an interview with NBC4, Kevin McGowan, the director of LA County’s Office of Emergency Management, apologized and explained what went wrong.
The correct zones for the evacuation warning was communicated through the proper channels, McGowan said, but the notification was sent to the entire county due to system error.
"We issued those notifications through a system. The correct zones were initiated, however, there was an error in the system that then sent the emergency alert to the entire county," McGowan said.
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McGowan's office realized the mistake immediately, and he said they sent out another message clarifying the evacuation warning was only for those near the Kenneth fire as soon as possible.
"We are working with the software, currently. Troubleshooting it," McGowan said, noting that his office has sent out other alerts throughout the recent wildfires without incident. However, the director also admitted they "do not understand" what went wrong in this case.
"We do not understand, at the moment, what caused that error," McGowan said. "(But) It wasn't a human error. The correct zones were initiated. So we are working to troubleshoot that to ensure that it doesn't happen again."
To see the current areas under evacuation orders click here.
