House of Representative members from California want to know what led to accidental evacuation alerts that fomented confusion during devastating Los Angeles fires in January.
After the gaffe, the county said it was working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate why “echoes” of the alert kept going out to residents’ phones, making it more difficult for people to rely on officials’ warnings.
“The difference between life and death”
“Appropriately timed, targeted, and clear emergency alert messages can mean the difference between life and death. However, unclear messages sent to the wrong locations, multiple times and after the emergency has passed, can lead to alerting fatigue and erosion of public trust,” the lawmakers say in letters sent to Los Angeles County, FEMA, the FCC, and software company Genasys.
Led by Representative Robert Garcia (D-CA), the legislators are considering whether more guidance or regulations are needed to keep the same problem from happening again during other emergencies. The letters include a series of questions about how the Los Angeles warning system operates and what’s changed since the January infernos. The recipients have been asked to provide their responses by April 1st. None of them immediately provided responses to inquiries from The Verge.
