Last evening, Twin Cities residents found themselves on the receiving end of a false alarm. The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) admitted they goofed, accidentally casting a wider net with a shelter-in-place alert that should have covered just a couple of streets in Robbinsdale. The alert, intended solely for the 3600-3700 block of Hubbard and West Broadway, went out at 7:34 pm, causing undue stress for folks beyond the designated danger zone.

Despite the disruption, the HCSO quickly tried to douse the flames of panic with an update clarifying the situation. In its rush to inform the people, the alert meant for a Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) ended up as an Emergency Alert System (EAS) broadcast, blanketing most television screens in the Twin Cities Metro area. In a statement obtained by the Hennepin County dispatch, the sheriff's office explained the error and the subsequent all-clear that was issued around 10:33 pm.

The staff member responsible, although FEMA-certified to send out these warnings, tripped up somewhere in the alert process at the HCSO’s Emergency Communications Facility. Hennepin County’s law enforcement, embarrassed by the human glitch, has already pinpointed the step where things skidded off the tracks. Their game plan includes a chinwag with the software developers to straighten out the kink, aiming to put a lid on this kind of blunder.

Meanwhile, county emergency management teams are teaming up with the sheriff's office to give their standard operating procedures a once-over. Determined to avoid deja vu, they’re dissecting what went sideways – because when warnings meant for a few rattle the many, it's more than just an oops moment; it's a wake-up call to button up the system. As detailed in their online bulletin, the HCSO is taking strides to ensure this type of scare doesn't pay the Twin Cities another unwanted visit.