The Florida government confirmed on Thursday that it has terminated its contract with the company Everbridge, responsible for coding emergency alert tests for residents of the state.
Millions of people in Florida woke up at 4:45 a.m. Thursday after receiving an emergency alert that turned out to be an error from the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Floridians’ phones rang loudly early in the morning, waking millions of people who checked their phones and discovered it was a test alert that read: “TEST: This is a TEST of the alert system emergency. No action is required.”
But many wonder why the alert came at this time of the morning.
The Florida Association of Broadcasters said the test alert should occur every two months at 4:50 a.m. or 1:50 p.m. However, officials clarified that residents of the state were not supposed to receive an alert on their cell phones during the early hours of April. 20.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management also said the alert was a mistake because it was meant to be broadcast on television and not to citizens’ phones.
They also explained that they are “taking appropriate steps to ensure this does not happen again and that only true emergencies are sent as alerts in the middle of the night.”
For its part, the National Weather Service (NWS) has asked all cell phone users not to turn off emergency alert notifications because they will not receive important notifications about weather, kidnappings, or any emergency that endangers them for the population.