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Dallas apologizes after erroneous alert messages; vendor to conduct audit
Summary
City officials said an alert-and-warning system sent erroneous notifications from other parts of the country; the city stopped the alerts, apologized and said the vendor will perform a full audit with results to be shared with council.
Kevin Oden, director of Emergency Management and Crisis Response, acknowledged that an automatic alert-and-warning system began sending erroneous notifications tied to other parts of the country and that the city has halted those messages while investigating.
"We got that shutdown and lockdown," Oden said. "The issue is resolved, and the vendor is doing a full audit of the system to make sure that there are no other snags." He apologized to residents for any confusion caused by the messages.
In response to a later question from the Dallas Morning News, Oden said the city will prepare a full accounting of both operations and the alert issue and will brief the city council on follow-up this evening. "My sincere apologies to anybody if we **** ** your phones and email inbox," he said.
City officials did not provide a total count of how many people received the erroneous messages during the brief but said the number varied depending on how residents had registered for alerts (email, text or phone) and on which alert types they had subscribed to. Officials said the vendor-led audit will examine registration settings and system behavior to prevent a recurrence.
