2nd False Evacuation Alert Wakes Up LA County Residents At 4 A.M.

LOS ANGELES, CA — Many Los Angeles County residents were startled out of bed early Friday morning by an evacuation-warning alert sent to their phones. The alert, which county officials confirmed was sent in error, was the second such mistakenly sent alert within 12 hours. It was followed by additional false alerts throughout the day Friday.

County officials on Friday said the messages sent in error were somehow "not human driven," suggesting they were sent automatically.

"An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area," the text read, accompanied but a loud alarm.

County officials confirmed it was sent in error.

"I can't express enough how sorry I am for this experience," Kevin McGowan, the LA County office of emergency management director said at a Friday morning news conference.

"First of all, I want to clarify — this is not human driven. There is no one sitting at a desk right now initiating emergency alerts. I want to restate that right now as these alerts are being issued, they are not being activated or initiated by a person," he added.

McGowan implored residents not to disable the alerts — he said residents should always confirm actual evacuation warning and order zones on alertla.org. He said he can guarantee the accuracy of the information on that website.

"I implore everyone to not disable the messages on your phone. This is extremely frustrating, painful and scary, but these alert teams have saved lives during this emergency," he said.

McGowan said he was working with FEMA to rectify the problem that led to the messages being sent in error. It's his top priority, he said.

"I want to express my deep frustration with the alert system that is causing confusion and additional panic for our communities at this time of extreme crisis, whatever the cause, it is unacceptable and it is being addressed now," county Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said.

"We'll be investigating what happened, how and why, at every level in our exhaustive after-action process to ensure it is corrected," she added.

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Friday morning's erroneous alert came just hours after a similar incident startled LA County residents.

That alert was sent to some 10 million residents Thursday afternoon, warning that the user's neighborhood was subject to an evacuation warning, county Supervisor Janice Hahn said.

The alert was sent countywide due to a technical error, Hahn said. The alert was also sent in error widely across Orange County, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.

A follow-up alert correcting the mistake was sent about 20 minutes later to LA County residents.

The alert was meant to be sent only to those within the immediate area of the Kenneth Fire, which broke out Thursday afternoon in the west San Fernando Valley.

Kevin McGowan, director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management, released a statement:

"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. 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."

The alert included a link to alertla.org, a county landing page for information about the fires burning in LA County. But the website may have failed to load for many users, likely due to the high number of people navigating to the site at the same time from the alert.

To see if you're within an evacuation zone, view the county's evacuation maps here.

“It’s not a 100-percent system yet, so somebody may have pushed the wrong button,” retired Los Angeles County Fire Department captain Bob Goldman told KTLA.