An incredible screwup.
Pointing Fingers
Police in the Los Angeles area accidentally broadcast an emergency evacuation order for the whole city — and it really freaked out those who saw it.
As Bloomberg reports, local stations in Ventura County erroneously broadcast a scary-looking evacuation alert Wednesday night after a brushfire broke out near the city of angels. But the alert vastly overstated the danger, telling the whole city of LA and several additional areas to evacuate.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department also tweeted out the alert in English and Spanish, the report notes, before it issued a retraction that blamed its LA County counterparts for the erroneous message.
“The evacuation notice that was received by some Ventura County Residents on television was sent in error by the County of Los Angeles,” the VCSO tweet reads. “There is no threat to Ventura County at this time and no need for residents to evacuate.”
Absolutely No
Prior to the retraction, folks in LA were understandably freaked out. Some even compared it to a similar incident that happened in Hawaii in 2018 — except in that case, it was a nuclear warning.
“I missed this until this morning,” one user tweeted. “Did LA County tell Hawaii, ‘Hold my beer?’ Oops.”
Another user who saw the alert was a bit more graphic.
“Uhh did anyone in LA get an evacuation notice??” they tweeted. “Kinda shitting my pants [right now].”
It remains unclear whether the alert was a drill or a simple fat finger mistake, or whether it’s related to the LA region wildfires currently roiling near freeways in the northern part of the city.
But one thing’s for certain — some people were ready to recreate “Escape from LA.”
READ MORE: Evacuation Order Telling Residents to Leave Los Angeles Is Broadcast on TV in Error [Bloomberg]
More scary alerts: NYC Issues PSA on How To Survive Nuclear Attack