PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) — State officials say Monday’s false tsunami warning in Clallam County was the result of a Jefferson County official testing a new cellphone app.
The Peninsula Daily News reports that the app, which the state was beginning to roll out to counties across the state in April, was deactivated Tuesday morning.
The Division of Emergency Management has worked with the vendor to build in restrictions that would prevent counties from activating other counties’ sirens.
Division spokesman Mark Stewart said that Jefferson County Emergency Management Public Information Officer Todd Morrison has been attempting to test sirens in Jefferson County, but those sirens didn’t go off.
Stewart said it was a combination of human error and a lack of restrictions within the app that allowed the false alarm to happen.