California officials apologized after millions of residents in Los Angeles County were alarmed by a false alert to evacuate as wildfires rage.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department mistakenly issued a warning to roughly 9.6 million residents, alerting them to leave their homes late Thursday afternoon.
Kevin McGowan, the director of Los Angeles County’s Office of Emergency Management, said the mistake was not due to human error. He blamed the chaos on a software “error in the system” and apologized for the incident Thursday evening, saying officials are still working to determine exactly why the error happened.
“My deepest and sincerest apology … that everyone throughout Los Angeles County experienced with the wireless emergency alert that was sent out,” McGowan said during an NBCLA interview. “We are working with the software currently — troubleshooting it. I would like to express to everyone that we’ve sent out a significant amount of emergency alerts throughout this entire wind storm and multiple fires… we are working to troubleshoot that to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”
The mistaken warning residents received just before 4 p.m. Thursday read: “This is an emergency message from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area.”
Hours later, the county’s emergency department posted on social media that the alert “to evacuate was sent in ERROR.”
The alert spread across the entire city, with “Times staff across the metropolitan area — from Long Beach to Echo Park and beyond,” according to the Los Angeles Times. The warning was only meant for residents of Calabasas and Agoura Hills and those within the West Hills community of Los Angeles, according to NBC News.
Many residents, already on edge by the fires that have displaced thousands of people and killed at least 10 people, directed their anger toward the county’s “incompetent buffoons” in posts to X.
”Your failures will be remembered in history textbooks. Resign,” one furious resident said to Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn.
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The state’s Democratic governor has received sharp criticism for his handling of the crisis. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) administration and Los Angeles officials are also being scrutinized for the policies they set in place leading up to the fires that critics argued helped fuel the disaster.
National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles on Friday to help the city deal with the disaster as it seeks to clamp down on looting that ensued after the fires.
