Pinellas County Emergency SMS & Robocalls False Alert

Friday night I received an emergency shelter in place SMS alert from Pinellas County FL emergency management. A few minutes later a robocall gave the same message. I’m thinking it must be a mistake after just watching the local news. Someone goofed and pushed the wrong button! 😆

Reminds me of Hawaii a while back when little rocket man Kim Jong-Un was pounding his chest. Kim was boasting he could take out Hawaii with one of his mis-guided missiles. As crap usually happened someone pushed the states Incoming Missile Alert Button creating mass panic.

Not to be outdone by Hawaii’s huge goof-up Pinellas County FL decided to create a shelter in place alert. Though I’m sure it was not intended as was in Hawaii’s situation, some under-trained worker simply screwed up like in Hawaii by pushing the wrong button!

Tampa Bay Times reports: Pinellas County erred in sending messages urging people to shelter in place. The alert came after other states issued similar orders across the country. Oops.. 😥

Electronic messages sent Friday evening by Pinellas County emergency alert to residents urging them to shelter in place were sent in error, county administrator Barry Burton said. The message from Alert Pinellas told residents to “shelter in place, which means residents should avoid traveling for non-essential purposes.” Burton did not know about the message recommendation until the TBT called him Friday evening. The Pinellas false alert was sent to sms and email addresses.

“It’s a wording issue,” Burton said. “I don’t want people to overreact. We are urging people to avoid contact with others as much as possible.” Pinellas false alert.

A new message would be sent to residents, Burton added, saying that all other parts of the message were correct. It came as county and city leaders work to inform residents and tourists about public beaches closing at 11:59. p.m. Friday.

It urged people to not gather in groups of more than 10 and to keep at least six feet apart. “Social distancing keeps us safe,” the message said.

The erroneous part of the message came about 24 hours after Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel asked the six other commissioners in an emergency meeting about the possibility of making the recommendation. Seel said she liked the orders issued to several California cities. The idea didn’t gain momentum with other commissioners.