SMC's Emergency Notification System Sounds Alarm in Error

*UPDATES PENDING*

An alert was sent out in error to evacuate "2714 Pico Blvd," this Thursday morning at 7:45 a.m. The building, an administrative structure down the street from SMC's main campus, is the SMC branch office of the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District. The emergency order instructed recipients to “remain calm,” and warned, “do not run. Follow instructions of campus personnel.” 

For six minutes, SMC’s emergency notification system remained disturbingly silent, as students took to official and unofficial SMC social media sites to inquire the nature of the emergency. “Any of you guys agree that this is just not okay?” posted SMC student Zane Meyer-Thornton on SMC’s official Facebook, summarizing the confusion felt by students around campus.

At 7:51 a.m., the silence was broken, and SMC’s emergency notification system alerted students that the emergency evacuation had been sent out “in error,” leaving only the comment, “pleasure return normal activities,” with no further explanation. “… how anyone can send out an accidental evacuation notice. Complete negligence,” continued Meyer-Thornton in his post, “Telling 30,000+ people to falsely evacuate is negligent in my book.”

With the issue of what caused the evacuation notice unresolved, SMC’s emergency notification system released two more notifications in the following minutes, warning students of a “utility failure,” at Drescher Hall, Business Building, Admission Complex and parking structures, and its subsequent vague resolution.

Update - 1:30pm:

In an afternoon , Grace Smith, SMC’s Public Information Officer stated, “there was a series of incidents that led to the alert that was accidently sent out this morning.” Southern California Edison electric company had a planned power outage in the neighborhoo, meant to last from 12:00 a.m. until 6:00 a.m., but delays prevented the rebooting of the electrical grid until 8:00 a.m. SMC PD was notified, and aimed to dispatch a notification to students and faculty about the power outages, but mistakenly sent the evacuation notice instead.