An Emergency Alert System push notification went out early morning Thursday, April 20, at 4:45 a.m., startling people awake across the state.
The alert was accompanied by the message, “TEST — This is a TEST of the Emergency Alert System. No Action is required.”
The Florida Division of Emergency Management, who were also probably just as startled as the rest of us, issued the following apology.
“We know a 4:45 AM wake up call isn’t ideal. FLSERT wants to apologize for the early morning text. Each month, we test #emergencyalerts on a variety of platforms. This alert was supposed to be on TV, and not disturb anyone already sleeping. We are taking the appropriate action to ensure this will never happen again and that only true emergencies are sent as alerts in the middle of the night.”
Twitter had the following responses.
