DENVER — Denver residents were confused on Saturday after an emergency alert meant for a small area was pushed citywide, marking the second time this past year that an alert error has occurred.
Denver 9-1-1 Director Andrew Dameron said officials are investigating the cause of the latest alert malfunction.
"We still don't fully understand, and we're still investigating. We're looking at our processes here. We've also engaged with the engineering team at our vendor partner, and they're looking into it as well," Dameron said.
A similar instance occurred in January, which Dameron attributed to a vendor issue. However, he noted the incident on Saturday was different.
"The situation that we had back in January, that was a software glitch that our vendor partner worked with us, night and day, for a couple weeks to get that fixed. That actually required them to rewrite some code in the software, which they did. They resolved that issue. The root cause of the alert from Saturday is still under investigation, but much like the one in January, it could be a technical issue. It also could have been human error," Dameron said.
The citywide 'all clear ' message left many Denver7 viewers and nearby neighbors confused, as they never received the initial emergency warning.
"I was more curious as to what was 'Clear' and why I didn't get the initial alert," one resident, Tanner Rice, said.
"Yeah. No alert beforehand that this is happening. Just an all clear, everything go back to normal, I was like 'oh okay,'" another resident, Jose Cabrera, said.
MSU Affiliate Professor in criminology and criminal justice, Stacey Hervey, explained that emergency alerts are crucial for keeping people safe and are a topic she discusses with her students.
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"So we talk about those alerts and then some of the other alerts for elderly people or people with dementia. They can be a really great way to get information to people, but again, if they're too often utilized, people can start to avoid them and just turn them off," Hervey said.
She explained situations like these could cause people to not take the alerts seriously.
"I think there has to be some troubleshooting that occurs. I received the alert Saturday saying it was all clear, but I'd never gotten the alert that it wasn't clear. So I just think there's going to have to be some troubleshooting," Hervey said.
Dameron emphasized that they take the responsibility of sending alerts very seriously and hopes to have answers as to how this happened by the end of Monday.
"This is a system that is incredibly complex. It requires near-perfect precision by the user who is composing and sending these messages, and so the possibility of mistakes are always there. We write policy, and we train in order to prevent those mistakes, and we also work with our vendor partners to ensure that the software tools that we're using are helping us toward that effort, rather than hindering us," Dameron said.
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