WELLINGTON, Fla. — An investigation by WPTV has uncovered a potential flaw in the emergency alert system that may have left thousands of residents in Palm Beach County without vital warnings during the unprecedented tornado outbreak on Oct. 9.
Since that day, many residents — particularly those in the Wellington, Loxahatchee and Acreage areas — told us they did not receive emergency alerts on their phones.
WATCH: WPTV looks into why many people never got emergency alerts on Oct. 9
WPTV investigative reporter Kate Hussey spent months reviewing weather reports and emergency alert records to understand the shortcomings of the nationwide alert system.
As chaos unfolded in Palm Beach County, body camera footage from deputies showed the devastation left behind by the EF-3 tornado. Powerful images showed houses leveled and cars tossed into trees.
Amid the turmoil, Amanda Norton sat in her Wellington home, completely unaware of the danger approaching.
“I started seeing on social media — tornadoes, yeah,” Norton stated.
"You got no warning?" Hussey asked.
"No, and the odd thing is, in the past we had gotten warnings," replied Norton.
Norton, her husband, and their two young children were positioned just four miles from the tornado’s core when the warnings were issued.
They said they had emergency alerts activated on their phones, but neither Amanda nor her husband said they received the alert that day.
"We have two different providers too, so I wasn’t sure where the issue was," said Norton. "It was really frightening especially because we had young kids at the house. I — we had no preparation for it."
Norton wasn't alone. A Nextdoor app thread shared with WPTV by Wellington residents showed dozens of other homeowners in the area reporting they also never got an alert, and the provider varied from person to person.
So we went to Warn.PBS.org, a government-funded website that tracks when a tornado warning is issued and the exact time a Weather Emergency Alert (WEA) is then sent to cell phone towers. If you have emergency alerts turned on, the WEA then pings your phone.
We wanted to see how much time elapsed between the tornado warning and the alert that was sent.
We found in every case, the WEA was sent within seconds of the National Weather Service's warning.
"Now the question is, why didn’t it get to people’s handsets? Why didn’t it get to their cellphones?" questioned former FEMA director Craig Fugate.
Fugate served under the Obama administration. We set out to answer his question.
Hussey read through dozens of pages of NWS reports on each of the 46 tornadoes that spawned across the state.
PBS alert records show the tornado warning for Wellington was issued at 4:28 p.m., which then triggered an emergency alert less than 16 seconds later.
NWS surveys show the tornado didn't touch down until 4:43 p.m., 15 minutes after the alert was sent to cell phone towers.
Yet, still, dozens of residents, including Norton, reported they never received the alert.
WATCH: Timeline of Wellington emergency alerts on Oct. 9
Why?
Video from our newscast around 2 p.m. on Oct. 9 may contain the key.
In it, you can see WPTV First Alert Weather chief meteorologist Steve Weagle showing the multiple tornado warnings NWS issued around the same time.
PBS alert records show some were issued just minutes apart and at 4:28 p.m., a tornado warning was issued for Orange County near Orlando.
It was the exact same time the warning was issued for the Wellington tornado.
Cell phone towers were pinged just seconds apart and that Wellington warning is the one dozens say they never got.
"Could those alerts being issued at the exact same time be the reason why?" Hussey asked Fugate.
"I think IPAWS is going back and looking at this, there were similar issues in the California wildfires," replied Fugate.
IPAWS stands for FEMA's Integrated Public Alert Warning System. It takes the warnings issued by NWS and other agencies and sends them to cell phone towers.
"How do they make sure that sequential messages follow each other and don’t cancel each other out?" asked Fugate.
"I expect from federal agency to use the latest technologies to be updated," added Dr. Tal Lavian, a telecommunications expert of over 40 years.
Lavian agreed multiple alerts being issued simultaneously could have compromised the delivery of Weather Emergency Alerts.
“You expect for errors, that's what you expect in emergency. I expect in case of emergency to have countermeasures of reliability," said Lavian.
WPTV reached out to FEMA.
A representative acknowledged that alerts may not have been delivered in certain circumstances but insisted that IPAWS is designed to handle multiple alerts simultaneously.
So what else could have gone wrong?
“The cell towers are broadcasting the signal based upon the polygon that the National Weather Service [issues] and then the towers will only send a signal that are in their area," said Fugate.
Fugate's words sparked a new idea for WPTV.
After mapping the homes of those who did not receive alerts, we found that many were just outside the warning polygon issued by the National Weather Service, despite being close enough to be affected by the tornado, including Amanda Norton, who was barely missed.
"That was just pure luck, I think, at the time, because a lot of people could have been very hurt by it if you look at the destruction," said Norton.
While she made it through unscathed, that wasn't the case for dozens of Wellington homeowners in the Meadow Wood area of western Wellington.
They fell outside the NWS's polygon of warning, and many of them told us they did not receive weather emergency alerts.
And yet, they were directly hit by the EF-3 tornado.
WATCH: Dozens in western Wellington fell outside the NWS 'polygon of warning'
Body camera footage from deputies shows multiple trees down, destruction of homes, and even a parked car that was thrown into a house.
"Our fear is that that may be why people didn’t get emergency alerts. Is that possible?" Hussey asked Robert Molleda, the meteorologist in charge of NWS Miami.
"There are a multitude of reasons, we can't list them all, but there are a multitude of reasons people may not get a WEA alert," replied Molleda. "But… yeah, I mean that’s essentially the way the system is designed to work, that people inside that polygon or box will get alerted."
Molleda said his office did issue additional alerts as the tornado moved north, and sent WPTV's Kate Hussey screenshots of additional polygons that were issued at 4:48 pm and 5:03 p.m.
The second warning did include the communities of Meadow Wood, Sugar Pond Manor, Paddock Park, and Binks Forest, which gave those communities a five minute lead time on the tornado, and the final warning issued at 5:03 p.m. included communtities all the way up to Jupiter Farms.
But again, several people in those communities told WPTV they never got the alert, and Molleda said it's possible those alerts were delayed or didn't come for those near the border of the polygon of warning.
"If we see this again would it be beneficial to have larger polygons?" Hussey asked.
"The tornado warnings are intended to highlight the areas at imminent risk of tornadoes, a high threat to life and property," replied Molleda. "We don’t want to over-warn."
The size of the warning polygons has been a topic of discussion among officials, with Fugate agreeing the fear of over-warning is the reason the agency switched to smaller polygon warnings years ago.
"The public saying we don’t want to get warnings that don’t apply to us," said Fugate.
Yet the former FEMA director suggested a reevaluation of our system may be necessary.
“When you see multiple warnings being issued sequentially across a large area, is that still a good way to do it?” asked Fugate.
"Is the size of the polygons something the National Weather Service would be willing to discuss?" Hussey asked Molleda.
WPTV Investigates
WPTV investigation reveals possible flaws in tornado alert system
"Yeah, certainly, that’s a key component of our warning system," replied Molleda.
Residents like Amanda Norton hope for improvements to ensure timely alerts in the future, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of tornadoes.
"Because you never know what’s going to happen with a tornado, they happen so fast, so we have to rely on urgent alerts that are timely," said Norton.
FEMA said they are also working constantly with federal partners to improve the emergency alert system, and a Federal Communications Commission spokesperson said they couldn't comment on this particular situation, but said they are not aware of simultaneous alerts canceling each other out.
Molleda also stressed the need for people to have more than one way of receiving alerts, pointing out that no system is 100% fool-proof, and the chances of receiving a potentially life-saving alert increase substantially if alerts are received from multiple sources, including apps such as FEMA, PBC Alerts, and other apps from media outlets and private weather companies.
As WPTV continues to investigate, the community awaits potential solutions, including a statewide initiative in Florida that may enhance the alert system through the use of artificial intelligence.
For those of you who got alerts but got them late, see our additional investigation, which may explain why.
