Southern California residents received an emergency alert on their cell phones Saturday morning in which residents of Glendale’s Chevy Chase Canyon community were told to immediately evacuate their homes.
It was a drill.
However, unless you were a resident of Chevy Chase Canyon who had received prior notice of the drill, you had no way of knowing it was a drill. As a result, large numbers of L.A. County residents, including Santa Clarita Valley residents, took to social media to find out what, exactly, was going on in Chevy Chase Canyon — some even wondering where Chevy Chase Canyon is — and to learn whether they, too, might soon be facing an emergency.
Tweets like this one from user Linz DeFranco popped up in rapid fire: “Who else in LA just googled Chevy Chase canyon?”
“Pretty rude to send that to EVERYONE in LA at 9am on a Saturday,” read one reply.
Those who found their way to the Glendale Fire Department or the city of Glendale Twitter accounts got their answer: “THIS IS A DRILL: #MyGlendale is conducting an evacuation exercise in Chevy Chase Canyon. For those who live in the Chevy Chase Canyon: Safely evacuate your home and proceed to the evacuation site located at the Glendale Community College Parking Lot B:”
The city of Glendale sent out a followup tweet, saying: “There was an error in the tech used to send out this mornings message. We are working to remedy this issue. Updates to follow.”
Chevy Chase Canyon residents had advance notice of the drill from the city of Glendale and via chevychaseestates.us — although the web page would not load Saturday morning, possibly a sign that the site was hit with unusually high traffic.
About a half-hour after the original message — and, apparently after becoming aware of the unintended consequences of the first alert — another alert was sent: “Disregard evacuation message for Chevy Chase Canyon. Training exercise only.”
