At about 3:30 p.m. on Monday, Los Angeles County lit up phones with another Wireless Emergency Alert notifying residents that a curfew would be in place from 6 p.m. Monday night until 6 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Two minutes later, phones across L.A. County blared again, this time with the message, "Curfew now 5pm-6am."
Confusion and frustration reigned as people tried to figure out what was going on.
Why was the curfew seemingly moved up by an hour in just two minutes? It was a mistake.
The initial message came from the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management. The second one did not.
"It was definitely a surprise. It was not something that was planned," said Helen Chavez, associate director for the L.A. County OEM.
Chavez said the message came from the city of Glendale, which was trying to communicate a 5 p.m. curfew — that only applies to Glendale.
"The intent was to send it to those within Glendale's boundaries," said Eliza Papazian, public information officer for the city of Glendale. "At this moment we're working with the platform that we use to send these notifications to perform an analysis and determine what occurred exactly."
That platform is Everbridge, the same company the city of L.A. uses to distribute its Wireless Emergency Alerts. The system notifies residents of natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes, and mudslides.
When asked why L.A. County didn't send out another alert to clarify the mistake, Chavez said they were trying to avoid "WEA fatigue." Because the curfews were so close to one another, they instead reached out via the media to clarify.
Cities with earlier curfews include:
- Beverly Hills — 1 p.m.
- Long Beach business district — 1 p.m.
- Santa Monica — 1:30 p.m.
- Long Beach — 4 p.m.
- Culver City, 4 p.m.
- West Hollywood — 4 p.m.
- Glendale — 5 p.m.
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