The District of Squamish has released more information about what happened on Sunday when a violent incident alert was inadvertently sent out to some local residents during a test exercise.
The initial alert, which featured the graphic of a handgun, said a violent incident had been reported 172 metres east of recipients' homes.
It instructed those who received it to "evacuate the area immediately. If you have a designated rally point, go there now."
A total of 225 texts, 1,341 emails and 165 phone calls were delivered at 9:57 a.m., according to the District.
At 10:05 a.m., a second message was sent clarifying that it was a test alert and noting, "There is no active threat."
The District also posted on its social media channels that there had been a test, not an actual violent incident.
District spokesperson Rachel Boguski told The Squamish Chief on Sunday that a follow-up message was sent to those who received the frightening initial alert (at 11:32 a.m.), apologizing for the incident.
"The District of Squamish sincerely apologizes for this morning's unintended emergency alert." reads the note sent to the initial alert recipients and forwarded to The Squamish Chief by Boguski.
"The alert was intended for a small internal test group and, therefore, the 'test' language was not included. We are now aware of a technicality in the system that resulted in a larger recipient group than intended," the message continued.
"We are conducting a full debrief to understand exactly how this happened and to prevent this from happening again. Please accept our apology for any stress or concerns this may have caused."
Monday evening, Boguski provided more details, saying the alert was part of an "invaluable" inter-agency emergency exercise at the Squamish Public Library, involving District staff and emergency services partners to test inter-agency co-ordination for an active threat.
Boguski said this exercise was done on Sunday morning so as not to impact the library's operations.
"Internal communications were an essential element that was to be tested as part of this exercise, and to accomplish this the District wanted to internally test the use of the Voyent Alert (Squamish Alert) system."
Voyent Alert is a service provider that allows the District to communicate important information to subscribers quickly through Squamish Alert emergency notifications.
Boguski said a number of pre-set message templates are built into the Voyent system to help municipalities respond quickly to urgent threats and other situations.
"In addition, unknown to the District at the time of the exercise, there were added functionalities in the pre-set messages to automatically disseminate the pre-set message to Voyent Alert system subscribers within a 1.4 kilometres radius."
The result was that in addition to the internal test group, as intended, alerts were simultaneously sent to subscribers located within the radius area.
Once the mistake was identified during the exercise, District staff "worked urgently" to determine the technical issue and retract the alert at 10:05 am.
Later that morning, at 11:32, staff issued the apology statement, Boguski said.
Update Tuesday
On Monday, the Voyent Alert developer ICESoft Technologies informed users, including the District, of a planned system update on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
The update included an "Enhanced Alert Preview" that will prompt system administrators to enter a number into a form field to confirm and acknowledge the number of intended recipients of the alert, according to Boguski.
This feature reduces the likelihood of accidental alerts being sent.
"District of Squamish staff—and our suppliers—work continuously to improve and learn from these test situations. We are grateful to the public for their understanding in this case," Boguski said.
"We recognize that clear communication and speed are integral to building trust and delivering an effective emergency response."
The incident has not changed the District's mind about the Voyent Alert system, with Boguski saying that it is a trusted way to reach the public in an emergency.
(Locals can sign up for the service at Squamish.ca/alert.)
Muni staff are continuing to debrief and working to improve the processes that led to the incident, so it won't happen again, Boguski said.
"This includes implementing a standard protocol of all test communications beginning and ending with 'TEST ONLY,'" she said.
District staff will also be working with Voyent Alert staff to review all system-generated templates.
*Please note that this story has been updated since it was first posted to add more details as they became available. It was again updated on Oct. 30 to keep the time tense accurate (changing the tense so the upgrade to the alert system said Tuesday, not 'today').
