Dana Mathewson, with apologies to the late Casey Stengel. From Urgent Agenda.

You'll recall that, some weeks ago, a state employee in Hawaii sent out a live alert warning that Hawaii would be hit by an incoming ICBM. It created a near-panic and wasn't corrected until more than a half hour later. Now there's been another false emergency alert. These things are dangerous, costly, and unacceptable. From NBC News:

Some residents along the East Coast received a false tsunami warning on Tuesday morning as part of a monthly test by the National Weather Service.

A tweet from the National Weather Service (NWS) in Charleston, South Carolina, said the alert was sent around 8:30 a.m. ET.

"We have been notified that some users received this test message as an actual Tsunami Warning," the NWS tweeted, adding that a tsunami warning was "not in effect."

In a statement to NBC News, the NWS said that a routine test was sent out and that the agency is investigating why it was communicated as an actual tsunami.

"The test message was released by at least one private sector company as an official Tsunami Warning, resulting in widespread reports of tsunami warnings received via phones and other media across the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean. We're currently looking into why the test message was communicated as an actual tsunami warning, and will provide more information as soon as we have it," the NWS said.

The push notification sent to phones in South Carolina was reportedly sent by the AccuWeather app, according to The Post and Courier of Charleston.

AccuWeather also tweeted that the notification was a test, not an actual warning.

COMMENT by William Katz, of Urgent Agenda: A presidential commission is required to look into all emergency services and their communications systems. Fortunately, no one was killed or seriously injured as a result of this latest blunder, but we can easily imagine serious accidents and deaths as people panicked and tried to get away from the incoming "tsunami."

Not acceptable. Serious action required.

I agree. Why, it almost appears that somebody, somewhere, is trying to cause trouble.

Entire story here: http://www.urgentagenda.com/PERMALINKS%20IX/FEBRUARY%202018/06.ALERT.HTML

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