Phones across Los Angeles County and elsewhere rang out Tuesday night, Nov. 11, when a test alert mistakenly was sent by South Pasadena officials to a much larger geographic area than they intended.

“This is a test of the South Pasadena WEA (Weather Emergency Alert) system,” the alert, which was sent around 5:50 p.m., read. “There is no emergency.”

Public safety officials sent the alert, which appeared to have pinged most cellphones in Los Angeles County, said Jennifer Colby, a spokesperson for the City of South Pasadena. On Reddit, some users said they received the alert as far away as Orange and San Luis Obispo counties.

The city’s public safety officials are looking into the issue and determining why the alert was sent to a far wider region than intended, Colby said.

In January, the Los Angeles County Fire Department sent multiple false alerts to cellphones across the county as the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires raged.

A report released in May by U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, found that a software error caused one of the alerts, which warned of evacuations amid the Kenneth fire and was mistakenly sent to millions of residents across Los Angeles County.

State legislators expressed concern over the faulty alert system and the possibility it could create alert fatigue among residents, causing them to ignore emergency alerts in the future. They also considered the possibility of a state-run emergency alert system.

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