SPRINGDALE — A tsunami warning sent erroneously to some Northwest Arkansas residents could wash away their ability to receive notifications of bad weather.
Springdale's weather notification system sent out text messages and email about weather threats anywhere in the United States to about 250 of its 23,000 subscribers. They had signed up for local warnings that arrive between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The mistake causing the notifications happened when the database was updated by a city worker, said Mayor Doug Sprouse.
Web Watch
Springdale Weather Notification System
Those wishing to sign up for notifications of severe weather can go to www.springdalear.gov and click on the “Alert Notification” button.
Mistakes happen, Sprouse said, but what was most upsetting was the notifications continued after city workers learned of the incident. The messages began at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. People started reporting the excessive messages about 7:30 p.m., and the flood continued through 8:30 a.m Wednesday, Sprouse said.
"That is unacceptable," Sprouse said. "We have to make sure this never happens again."
Jennifer Chacon, the receptionist in the mayor's office, said she spent Wednesday morning answering voicemail, email and Facebook messages. Many were people wanting to be removed from the system, she said.
The constant beeping of cellphones all night caused problems. Capt. Ron Hritz, Springdale police, said he got almost no sleep.
"I can't turn my phone off," Hritz said. "I have to be available for work. My wife turned her phone off but mine kept her awake."
Hritz said he got about 40 to 45 texts plus email. A police dispatcher who was on-call was kept awake all night, Hritz said.
This reporter received 65 texts and 42 email during the notification barrage.
The messages stopped when the entire system was taken down, said Wyman Morgan, city director of administration. The mistake was found and corrected, and the system was operational at 9:30 a.m., said Mark Gutte, city information technology director.
People are being told this was a mistake that won't happen again, Morgan said.
"This is the time of year for bad weather, and we hope people will stay in the system or sign back up so they can get notifications," Morgan said. "We are removing them if they insist."
From now on, Sprouse said, the system will be monitored after updates to make sure similar mistakes aren't made.
"This is a valuable system for us," Sprouse said. "We use it internally as well as to let people know about dangers like tornadoes and bomb threats."
The forecast for today from the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Okla., calls for an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms through tonight.
The excessive warnings came after the computer code that included the city's location wasn't copied back to the program, Morgan said. Without the location data, all weather warnings in the United States were sent out, including a tsunami warning aimed at Hawaii. The tsunami warning was caused by an earthquake Tuesday off the coast of Chile, which killed six people, according to The Associated Press.
The notification system had 22,977 people in its database Wednesday morning, Morgan said.
NW News on 04/03/2014