Error sends second false mudslide warning in a week

CAMP MURRAY, Wash. – The Washington emergency alert system accidentally sent a warning Friday to all broadcast outlets statewide that a lahar – a massive, volcanic-caused mudflow – had occurred.

State emergency management spokesman Rob Harper said an operator conducting a test “hit the wrong button” and sent the warning for a volcanic mudslide at 6:44 a.m.

The operator immediately called some emergency managers and sent a correction at 7:25, though Harper said the correction should have been sent immediately.

Harper said he knows of only one station that carried the warning: KELA in Centralia. Several other stations called and did not run the warning because it looked questionable, Harper said.

Harper did not hear of any evacuations as a result of the false warning.

Geologists have warned that a huge mudflow could break loose from Mount Rainier’s west flank with little warning and that a wall of mud and debris could swallow everything in its path and bury the Puyallup Valley floor where 60,000 people live.

Harper said this was the first error of this kind in three years. The system is tested internally twice a day. He said a planned upgrade should make the system simpler to operate and reduce the chance of error.

There was another, separate false lahar warning that aired for nearly an hour Wednesday on an AM station that broadcasts in Pierce County. Some listeners said they were horrified.

Authorities had no estimate how many people heard Wednesday’s broadcast , or how many evacuated. Fewer than a dozen called Pierce County Emergency Management, the city of Orting or the Puyallup Fire Department.