The world hasn’t ended yet. But for a brief moment for students at an Alabama institution this Thursday, it probably felt like it was about to.
Early that afternoon, the alert system at Auburn University blasted out three emergency alerts making extraordinary claims: that there had been an active shooter, a tornado, and a hazardous waste spill all within minutes of each other.
“AN ALERT: THERE IS AN ACTIVE SHOOTER ON THE CAMPUS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL!” reads one of the alerts, per WFSA 12.
It was indeed not a drill, but instead a false alarm — as were all the other alerts. The idyllic Alabama town hadn’t been thrusted into the plot of a Don DeLillo story, if Don DeLillo had made a late career pivot to writing disaster B-movies instead.
Auburn University later apologized for its apocalyptic augurings, which were broadcasted across a hectic twenty minutes, and blamed the incident on a “technical error.”
“Please be assured that there was no threat to campus or the community. The alerts were triggered unintentionally, and we are actively working to resolve the issue to prevent future occurrences,” the university said in a statement. “We understand the alerts may have caused concern or alarm, and we sincerely apologize for any confusion.”
The mishap is another example of alert systems going dramatically wrong. Perhaps the most infamous false alarm in recent memory was when an emergency alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile lit up phones across Hawaii in 2018, sending the island state into a frenzied panic.
“SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” the alert warned. It took nearly forty minutes before a correction was issued.
The year before on the island territory of Guam, an unauthorized test of the emergency broadcast system was conducted on two radio stations shortly after midnight, stating that there was a “civil danger warning.” Tensions on the island were already high at the time amid fears of an invasion by North Korea, no doubt leading some to believe that a “Red Dawn” scenario was finally upon them.
In 2020, millions of people in Ontario, Canada, were woken up with blaring emergency alerts on their phone stating that there had been an “incident” at a nearby nuclear plant. Over an hour later, another loud alert issued a correction: there was no active nuclear situation.
We should remind you, reader, that these events are outliers, and that you should still treat any emergency alert seriously, including your building’s fire alarm that management was supposed to take care of years ago. For who knows: maybe there really is a toxic tornado raging towards campus with guns akimbo.
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