ALBANY - The National Weather Service said the unintentional distribution of a false flooding alert sent earlier this week to some phones in the Albany area originated with a cellphone service provider.
Christopher Gitro, the meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service office in Albany, said the warning sent on Wednesday, a day marked by sunshine and no significant rainfall, was a redistribution of an alert sent on July 29, a day when part of upstate New York experienced flooding in the wake of torrential rains.
He added Wednesday's alert was "inadvertently rebroadcast to the public by the carrier, which is actively investigating the root cause and has confirmed that this is an isolated incident."
He declined to identify the carrier, telling a reporter that information would need to come from the weather service's public affairs office. A message left with the office was not returned.
A flash flood warning, according to the National Weather Service, means flooding is imminent. Several county emergency management offices in the Capital Region and the mid-Hudson Valley have said some of their residents received the outdated flash flood alert, Colin Brennan, a spokesman for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, said on Wednesday.
People who said they received the startling alert said they were customers of AT&T and T-Mobile. Neither company's media relations office could be reached for immediate comment on Friday.
Gitro said the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to send urgent messages to the public worked as intended during the July 29 floods and "continues to operate normally."
There's more to Albany with the Times Union. Subscribe today for just 25¢.
This article originally published at Weather service says phone carrier sent false flooding alert.