System Glitch Sends 'Evacuate Now' Warning to Minnesota Residents

Yesterday morning residents across many Minnesota counties received a scary message from Homeland Security Emergency Management (HSEM) stating that they needed to evacuate now.

The message was sent to residents of Itasca, St. Louis, Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, and Pine counties, according to Bring Me the News. Fortunately, nothing was wrong, there was a glitch in the HSEM system, but that's a pretty scary mistake!

The Itasca County Sheriff's Office posted about the glitch on their Facebook page:

Itasca County Sheriff Vic Williams told Bring Me the News that "'our dispatch center is being inundated with calls regarding this.'"

Apparently HSEM does a weekly test of their emergency system. Unfortunately, this week the "public alert test was sent out beyond the test environment, and further complicating the situation was the fact that the "this is a test" portion of the message was cut off."

Thankfully nothing was actually wrong!