An evacuation order over NOAA weather radio was sent earlier. A copy of the intended, original message is below and when this hit a 3rd party provider called Alexa it consumed only small amount of the intended message and sent out a truncated emergency message to their subscribers. The message that Alexa sent was simple and it only gave an area and said to evacuate. The message is set to alert for 4 hours and we are trying to get it cut off but the National Weather Service is not sure it can be.
This message was sent out under the civilian warning protocol which we followed and is used to warn the public. The reason why we use NOAA weather radio in wildfires is because of power outages due to firefighting or the risk of power and telephone lines being affected by the fire rendering traditional emergency telephone warning messages useless.
The Alexa processing problem was not known by the National Weather Service and was dormant and not visible prior to the launch.
Corrective Actions: We are messaging this on our website, notified communication centers, and also emergency mangers/PIOs across the county. The impact area according to the NWS is limited to Alexa users in Boulder County and possibly Broomfield County. We will be following up with Alexa officials to resolve the issue moving forward.
The Mission was to alert residents threatened by the fire and the residents in the mountain areas of the warning did indeed get a message and we hope if they are experience infrastructure issues from the fire they did receive the warning also.
Our apologies for any trauma or discomfort this may have caused your agencies and communities.
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