FDEM apologizes for waking people with early morning test alert

Reporter: Annalise Iraola Writer: Joey Pellegrino
Published: Updated:
Responding to a phone alarm. Stock photo by Eren Li

The Florida Division of Emergency Management issued an apology Thursday morning for waking people up at 4:45 a.m. with an emergency alert test.

According to FDEM, the alert was meant to go out over television and not to people’s phones.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and his press secretary Bryan Griffin promised there would be consequences for the error.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management apologized on Twitter, saying the alert was meant for TV.

For many people those precious minutes before the alarm goes off are sacred and the only reason they should be disturbed is because of an emergency.

“I was wondering what in the world is going on? You know, and then I got up and I saw what it was so irritated. Why do a test that early in the morning? Everybody’s complaining that got it,” Mos said.

“You assume the worse. So I thought it was a real emergency until I saw it was a test of the emergency system,” Mos said.

Plenty of people took their anger out on local law enforcement.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Office said, “We had no involvement. In fact, all of us got the same notification you did.”

“Please do not turn off emergency alerts on your mobile device. This is the fastest way to receive tornado warnings, evacuation alerts, or news about hazardous material events,” Marco Island Fire Rescue said.

And that’s the big fear after the incident. Nobody on the state or local level wants people to turn off public safety alerts because of what happened early Thursday morning.

Copyright ©2024 Fort Myers Broadcasting. All rights reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without prior written consent.