TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida lawmakers were up early Thursday, along with millions of other Floridians who were awoken by a loud alert on their phones.
Before the sun could rise, a loud sound, commonly associated with an Amber Alert, chimed phones across the Sunshine State promptly at 4:45 a.m. A disgruntled Sen. Blaise Ingoglia knew something had to be done.
“Honestly, it was a mistake,” the Republican Senator from Spring Hill told WFLA’s Libbey Dean. “But with that mistake, we started realizing that they could send these notifications out at any time.”
According to the Florida Association of Broadcasters, a test alert is scheduled to occur every other month around 4:50 a.m. However, Florida officials told WFLA that residents were not supposed to receive the alert on their cell phones Thursday morning.
“[The FL Division of Emergency Management] wants to apologize for the early morning text,” the division said in a tweet. “Each month, we test emergency alerts on a variety of platforms. This alert was supposed to be on TV, and not disturb anyone already sleeping.”
But that was not enough for Ingoglia and other lawmakers, who proposed the so-called “Stop Wake Act,” a play on the governor’s ‘Stop WOKE act.’
“I’d hate to think that we would have to put something that sensible in the law,” Ingoglia said. “But I think it needs to be done.”
Because the deadline for a bill’s filing already passed, lawmakers will not consider an amendment, adding a provision to block alerts between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.
“We are reviewing that right now,” Ingoglia said. “We are trying to look for a vehicle, whether it’s in the House — if they do it and send it back over us — or if we do it in the Senate. But we’re looking for that because I really want to get this done.”
With support, the amendment could pass as soon as this year.
Governor Ron DeSantis also took to Twitter Thursday ordering FL Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie “to bring swift accountability for the test.”
“This was a completely inappropriate use of this system,” DeSantis said in the tweet. “Stay tuned.”
“I don’t think the person should be fired, but I think there should be a realization that they should take a greater care to insure this doesn’t happen again,” Ingoglia said.
“Don’t wake me up at 4:45 in the morning if we don’t have to,” he added, chuckling.