Civil alert sent accidentally by NOAA

 

At about 6:35 pm Saturday evening viewers in several counties of NY and Connecticut were surprised to have their programming interrupted by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Civil Alert message. The now familiar emergency tones were followed by a message of an impending weather emergency in 4 Connecticut and 2 NY counties and it abruptly ended halfway though the message leaving a large number of viewers bewildered and apprehensive. Several dozen local Facebook groups were awash with chatter about the message. Speculation by the masses ranged from an accident by a technician which inadvertently sent the alarm to possible tornadoes in the affected areas with one person who joked that "the Russian did it!"

 

The NOAA issued the following statement a short time later regarding the alert.

 

"The National Weather Service inadvertently sent out a civil emergency message while testing the NOAA Weather Radio. This message had no text within it and was only disseminated through NOAA Weather Radio. We are sorry for any interruptions in communications this has caused."

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Submitted by Brewster, NY

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