MADISON COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — Emergency Management officials in Madison County still aren’t sure how an incomplete emergency alert made it to people’s cell phones early Saturday morning.
However, they are confident their staff aren’t at fault — as in the message that made it to phones wasn't the message that his staff typed up.
“There were 2 people on duty at the time and a supervisor, all 3 of them checked it, double checked it, and when they sent it, that was what came out,” said Tim Gray, the county’s interim emergency management director. “They put in the [text] they should have.”
What got to phones simply read “Local Area Emergency in this area until June 3 4:48 AM EDT. Monitor Radio or TV. Message from MADEOC.” The system spit back an “error” message to the county’s emergency management team.
Gray explained what made it to phones was the default emergency message, instead of the message about a Golden Alert which has since been resolved. That message made it to phones hours later, once the state took over sending alerts, a practice that’s remained as they investigate.
FEMA looked into the issue, telling Gray the error message was something they've never seen before.
“We’re investigating both sides of it, whether it's our people or their's but they’re telling us right now, what they're seeing as the neutral party is, it was an error in the system, it was nothing on our part,” Gray said.
The county faced issues with their alerts before he took over as interim director 6 months ago, Gray said. The problems the alerts faced were largely the result of technical issues. Some were due to human error, he said.
At the time he took over, a single person was responsible for sending the alerts. Now their work is checked by two people, he said.
To send alerts, they use a system from a company he identified as DASDEC (Digital Alarm Systems.)
Explaining why it’s taken so long to get answers, Gray said the company is not open on weekends and did not respond to multiple requests for assistance. He said a meeting is scheduled with the company on Wednesday where he hopes to learn more.
The county is raising the standard for when it sends out Golden Alerts on phones. It now must be a dire situation. The early morning Golden Alert Saturday would have still qualified, he said.
