False alarm for water customers: thousands get automated call

If you got a phone call on Wednesday, telling you to contact the city's water district as soon as possible, don't panic: It might have been a mistake.

"We had an error in our citizen notification system, and it looks like approximately 4,000 residents were notified," city spokeswoman Kelly Malloy said Thursday. "As soon as we realized what was happening, we stopped any additional calls from going out. And, of course, we immediately sent out the correction message."

The city's automated Connect-CTY is designed to send out widespread alerts in case of fire, utility outages and other large-scale alerts.

"We're still working with the company that we contract with to find out what happened," Malloy said.

Wednesday afternoon, hordes of water customers dutifully called city hall to find out what was going on.

"Most people have been pretty understanding that it was just a glitch in the system," Malloy said. "You get a phone call from the city, it's understandable that you'd be concerned, so we tried to respond to all of the phone calls."

Beau Yarbrough can be reached at 956-7108 or at beau@hesperiastar.com.