160,000 phones mistakenly receive emergency alert in Jefferson County

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- 160,000 phones in Jefferson County received an emergency alert Saturday night, according to 9NEWS. The alert was supposed to only go out to 40 phones, warning about a shelter-in-place.

Jeffcom911, the agency that manages sending emergency alerts, is figuring out if it was a glitch in the software or if the mistake was caused by a person.

"It’s unfortunate. It certainly was never our intent to send something like that out to that vast of an audience," said Jeff Streeter, Executive Director of Jeffcom911. "We know it’s very scary and trying when you’re sleeping to be awoken by a phone call and hear there’s a shelter in place. You’re trying to figure out if this is impactful to me or not."

Every phone registered for emergency alerts in Jefferson County through the Lookout Alert system received the call after 12:30 a.m. Residents and businesses got the alert that there was police activity on Robb Street in Lakewood.

"It’s too early for me to discern whether it was user error or a system error," Streeter said. "We’re certainly going to look into that so that we don’t have this issue arise again in the future."

Some people reported receiving a phone call from Greece. Streeter isn't sure why that happened but something clearly went wrong.

According to Jeffcom911, they aim to be 100% accurate when sending out emergency alerts. They want to apologize to the community that received it.

"It’s important that these things are accurate, that the system is operating correctly and utilized correctly," Streeter said. "We know how important it is for their safety to get them notified in a timely manner."