False Tsunami Warning Prompts Concern Along Atlantic And Gulf Coasts
MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. (CBS) -- There's word of another false emergency warning issued by government officials.
This one appears to come from the National Weather Service, which issued a tsunami warning for the East and Gulf Coasts that was supposed to be only a test, only it got out on social media.
The message was issued Tuesday morning out of a center in Alaska and pushed out on a number of private apps, although Joe Miketta with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly says anyone who got that original text should have know it wasn't a real warning.
"When they went to the text message that was issued by the Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska it was very clearly stated that it was a test," Miketta told KYW Newsradio. "Every test message that we put out from the National Weather Service has to, by policy, has to include the word test, test, test."
The feds put out a correction in less than a hour.
Mind you, that test should have never gotten past governmental agencies. Miketta suggests computer coding could have led to private entities misreading the message, or there could have been some other problem.
Federal officials are investigating.
Susan Buchanan, with the Washington headquarters of the National Weather Service, issued a statement to KYW Newsradio which read, "Our investigation into this routine monthly tsunami test message confirmed that it was coded as a test message. We are working with private sector companies to determine why some systems did not recognize the coding. Private sector partners perform a valuable service in disseminating warnings to the public. We will continue to work with our partners to prevent this from occurring again."
