A 4:45 a.m. unscheduled emergency alert system text went out across Florida that jolted residents out of their slumber and into early morning confusion on Thursday.
"EMERGENCY ALERT: TEST - This is a TEST of the Emergency Alert System. No action is required," the message read.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported that the unsolicited text messages were even scarier for Android users who saw "Emergency alert: Extreme," followed by the same test disclaimer.
State officials acknowledged that sending the alert was a mistake about four hours after it went out on social media.
"We know a 4:45 AM wake up call isn't ideal (smiling face emoji with sweat). @FLSERT wants to apologize for the early morning text. Each month, we test #emergencyalerts on a variety of platforms. This alert was supposed to be on TV, and not disturb anyone already sleeping," the Florida Division of Emergency Management tweeted.
"We are taking the appropriate action to ensure this will never happen again and that only true emergencies are sent as alerts in the middle of the night."
The officer of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded sans emojis and sought to distance the governor from the error.
"This morning's 4:45AM SERT test alert was not appropriate and not done at our direction," DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin said, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. "The party responsible will be held accountable and appropriately discharged."
Floridians took to social media to react.
"DeSantis' emergency management department sent test emergency alert to Floridian's phone at 4:45 a.m. to prove his mandate that 'Florida is where 'woke' goes to die,'" Daniel Uhlfelder said via Twitter.
"IMO, not a good look to laugh this off as a silly mistake," NBC5 meteorologist Ben Frechette wrote. "You don't want to discourage people from having those alerts enabled – and definitely don't give them a reason to turn it off. Those alerts can save your life in dangerous weather situations."
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