FDEM apologizes for waking people with early morning test alert

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.

We know a 4:45 AM wake up call isn't ideal 😅@FLSERT wants to apologize for the early morning text. Each month, we test #emergencyalerts on a variety of platforms. This alert was supposed to be on TV, and not disturb anyone already sleeping. — FL Division of Emergency Management (@FLSERT) April 20, 2023

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’ve ordered FL Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie to bring swift accountability for the test of the emergency alert system in the wee hours of the morning. This was a completely inappropriate use of this system.

Stay tuned. — Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) April 20, 2023

“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.

This morning's 4:45AM SERT test alert was not appropriate and not done at our direction. The party responsible will be held accountable and appropriately discharged. — Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) April 20, 2023

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.