Arkansas tornado alerts sent to wrong residents

— Thousands of people across Arkansas received text messages on their cell phones Monday evening, warning them to seek immediate shelter from a tornado in their area. There was only one actual tornado warning, though, and it was just in the southwest corner of the state.

An apparent glitch in Verizon’s Wireless Emergency Alert system forwarded a warning message meant only for Columbia and Lafayette counties to all but a portion of northeast Arkansas.

The National Weather Service in Shreveport issued the warning for the two counties at 6:15 p.m. Monday, and Verizon sent out the warning messages to those in the counties. But the telephone service also sent the 90-character messages to telephones southeast of a line from Harrison to Fort Smith.

“It was a surprise,” said National Weather Service warning coordinator John Robinson. “It was a big inconvenience to us. We were watching the storms at 6:15, and every single phone was ringing with people asking about it.”

Ginger Daril, a Verizon spokesman in Little Rock, said the telephone provider is “looking into the issue.”

The errant warnings affected only Verizon phones. Daril said Verizon does not send out the messages but contracts with another company that uses the phone company’s wireless service.

Storms blew through the state Monday evening as a cold front passed through, downing trees in several areas and destroying a home and two barns in Bismarck.

In Evening Shade, Brent Edgin’s cell phone began beeping at 6:15 p.m. with the warning text. “Extreme Alert,” it read. “There is a tornado in your area. Take shelter now.”

Edgin and his wife, Joan, went to their storm shelter to take cover.

“It was horrible,” Joan Edgin said. “It was an ordeal.”

She said her husband recently underwent back surgery and cannot move quickly. She relies on large oxygen tanks to breathe.

“My husband was trying to get my oxygen bottle in the shelter,” she said. “We had to walk downhill to the shelter in the rain. He went back and got flashlights, and we had three dogs.

“We saw that alert from the National Weather Service,” shesaid. “We didn’t have any second thoughts. There was no question that there was a tornado around us.”

About 45 minutes later, they returned to their home. Joan Edgin said she saw a posting on the National Weather Service’s Facebook page about the erroneous message. Dozens of people had responded, saying they received the message.

The Wireless Emergency Alert system went into effect last year. Residents can receive presidential alerts, imminent danger notifications such as tornadoes and ice storms, and Amber Alerts with information about missing children.

Messages are supposed to be targeted to the areas of the alerts, Daril said. There are 13 Verizon devices that can receive the messages, and customers can choose not to receive all but the presidential alerts, she said.

“We’re looking into what happened,” she said. “As are other agencies involved.”

Joan Edgin said she and her husband were shaken up by Monday night’s events.

“We’ve been through tornadoes before, but after what we went through last night, we’ll probably second-guess a warning if it happens again.”

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 02/20/2013

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