The Los Angeles Department of Emergency Management said an emergency phone alert warning residents of a potential evacuation was mistakenly sent countywide, adding that the evacuation order had not changed.
recent @ReadyLACounty An evacuation advisory was sent in error. Evacuation orders remain unchanged. Click here for the actual map @LACity Evacuation orders apply only to some selected areas. https://t.co/qRYmG0qWS7
— City of LA Department of Emergency Management (@ReadyLA) January 10, 2025
“We have been informed that the evacuation alert that many of us just received on our cell phones was inadvertently issued for the entire county due to a technical error,” Los Angeles County Superintendent Janice Hahn told X.
A “corrected” alert was issued minutes later, including a loud bang, explaining that the alert was specifically for fires in the West Hills area, not the entire county’s roughly 10 million residents. Warnings have been issued more frequently than usual over the last week as the destructive Santa Ana storm sparked wildfires across the county, six of which were burning Thursday.
Kevin McGowan, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Management Agency, apologized and explained what went wrong in an interview with NBC4.
Click here to see the areas currently under evacuation orders.
