An emergency alert from the Town of Tonawanda regarding COVID-19 safety was sent this morning to mobile phone users in Erie County, and some outside the county.
The emergency alert read, “Continue to keep you and your family safe from COVID-19. Follow CDCs simple steps: Know how COVID spreads, Wash hands often, Avoid close contact, Wear a mask in public, Cover coughs and sneezes, Clean/disinfect frequently touched surfaces. Learn more on the Town of Tonawanda website.”
The alert was first identified as a test, but Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Joe Emminger later clarified it wasn't a test.
"Human error was entirely to blame for this occurrence," he said.
Emminger said the emergency services coordinator sent out the alert using a new system without discussing it with the supervisor or police chief under the normal procedure.
It was meant for Tonawanda residents only, but mistakenly went to the entire region's emergency alert system. People in Niagara County and some as far away as Albany reported receiving the message.
The timing was also curious. It happened shortly after 9 a.m. on Sept. 11—a solemn day when many remember the terrorist attacks that happened 19 years ago. Emminger said it never should have gone out then.
"Every 9/11 all of us who were old enough to remember we all know where we were at that hour, that 9 o'clock hour and the feelings that we were having. It was an embarrassment for the Town of Tonawanda to have that message sent out."
He apologized for the mistake, calling it "inappropriate."
He adds that the alert overloaded the town's website and it crashed.
"We found out in a non-emergency situation that we have to do some upgrades to our website so we can handle those number of hits if and when we do have an emergency, so it's good to find these things out in a non-emergency situation but it's still very much an embarrassment in my opinion to the town," he said.
The supervisor added that town leaders were meeting to discuss what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future and if any discipline will come to the employee who made the error.