<div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-0"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Emergency officials said they did not know how an erroneous evacuation alert was sent to cellphones across Los Angeles County this week — in some cases more than once — sparking panic across a region of millions where wildfires continue to ignite and expand out of control.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The alert was supposed to target residents in the area of the West Hills neighborhood, which was threatened by the burgeoning Kenneth fire. Instead, it blared on cellphones across Los Angeles County on Thursday night and, for some, again on Friday morning.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The county is the most populous in the nation, with 9.6 million people, though it was not immediately clear how many residents had received the alert.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The failure has led public safety officials to fear false panic — or perhaps worse, that residents might ignore future, accurate alerts because they’d become accustomed to false warnings.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Kevin McGowan, the director of the county’s emergency management office, acknowledged at a news conference on Friday that officials did not know why the warning had gone out to people who didn’t need to receive it. He said they were struggling to stop the notification from continuing to blare on people’s phones.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The false alert was “not being activated or initiated by a person,” he said, blaming an unknown technical glitch that officials had not yet been able to identify and fix.</p><div class="css-1336jj"><div class="css-121kum4"><div class="css-171d1bw"></div><div class="css-asuuk5"><noscript><div class="css-7axq9l" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript"><svg aria-hidden="true" class="css-1b5b8u1" height="24" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24"><path clip-rule="evenodd" d="M2.5 12a9.5 9.5 0 1 1 19 0 9.5 9.5 0 0 1-19 0Zm8.5 1.75v-7.5h2v7.5h-2Zm0 2v2h2v-2h-2Z" fill="currentColor" fill-rule="evenodd"></path></svg><div class="css-6yo1no" data-testid="optimistic-truncator-noscript-message"><p class="css-3kpklk">We are having trouble retrieving the article content.</p><p class="css-3kpklk">Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.</p></div></div></noscript><div class="css-1dv1kvn" id="optimistic-truncator-a11y" tabindex="-1"><hr/><p>Thank you for your patience while we verify access. 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