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Published on January 16, 2025
Wake County Emergency Alert Glitch Sends Manhunt "All Clear" to Entire County Instead of Just ZebulonSource: Unsplash/ Gilles Lambert

Last Friday night, a glitch in the emergency alert system caused confusion across Wake County. Instead of being sent only to Zebulon, where a manhunt was underway, the message was mistakenly sent to cell phones countywide. The message, which was meant to notify the public that a suspect had been captured, was sent in error due to a technical issue.

According to a release from the Wake County government website, the alert was the third in a series of messages related to the search. The first two were correctly sent to the Zebulon area, explained Darrell Alford, director of Fire Services and Emergency Management for Wake County.

Wake County, along with the emergency alert vendor and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is investigating why the geofence wasn’t applied as planned.

Alford acknowledged that the incident may have caused distress, saying, “We recognize how alarming it can be to receive an emergency alert unexpectedly, especially late at night,” in the same release. “While our intention was to reassure the affected community that the suspect was no longer a danger, a system error caused the alert to reach a much broader audience than intended. We appreciate everyone’s understanding as we work diligently with our vendor and FEMA to prevent similar issues in the future and to ensure our alerts are precise and effective,” he added.