Officials mistakenly aired a warning for residents of LA and Guadalupe Island, to evacuate.
The Daily Mail reported An evacuation order for the Eastern North Pacific Ocean, Guadalupe Island, Los Angeles, and Ventura County was issued at around 5 pm on Wednesday.
Roughly an hour after the warning, officials released a statement claiming that it was nothing more than an “error”.
‘There is no threat to Ventura County at this time and no need for residents to evacuate,’ the Sheriff’s office wrote in a statement.
This is of course cause for concern, one hour is plenty of time for citizens to begin panicking and start their evacuation process.
The Hawaiian governor issued an apology claiming that a Defense employee had pressed “the wrong buttons” causing the warning to be released.
It hasn’t been revealed yet with certainty exactly what caused the warning to air, though it’s likely that a mistake could be the answer.
According to the Daily Mail, the warning was linked to an ongoing fire that spread across 5,000 acres of land.
An evacuation was scheduled for the areas affected by the fire, or areas that may soon be affected, instead, the warning was aired to include a much broader area.
While this event was likely a mistake, it’s no doubt that it could have had dire consequences for the regions mistakenly told to evacuate.
Large-scale evacuations are bound to cause congestion and panic and potentially even injury or death due to panic.
