PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — WPTV has received several calls and seen plenty of chatter on social media from Palm Beach County residents concerned about not getting any emergency alerts on their cellphones ahead of last week's powerful tornadoes.
Investigative reporter Dave Bohman is pressing for answers as to why messages that could potentially save lives were not received.
Helen Kincaid spent most of last Wednesday putting up hurricane shutters on her home in The Acreage community of western Palm Beach County.
Hurricane Milton made landfall on the Gulf Coast and crossed the state, tracking to the north of her home.
"We were worried about the hurricane wobbling, coming south a little bit," Kincaid said.
That's when just as they were putting up the last shutter, a tornado touched down about 2 miles away.
The phone that was in her back pocket, which she counted on to warn her of severe weather, sat silent.
"[I] had no clue," she said of the nearby tornado. "[The situation was] very alarming because we were all out (outside), my daughter, my two grandchildren and myself were out here putting up the last shutter."
Kincaid is one of many who said they didn't receive an alert on their phone about the tornado.
WPTV later received several phone calls and saw many social media posts from Wellington that claimed they didn't get the emergency alert.
Wellington Town Manager Jim Barnes wants to know why.
"We've posed that question to the National Weather Service to try and make a determination as to what can we do to make sure these alerts are heard," Barnes said.
Hurricane
IMAGES: Hurricane Milton's impacts in South Florida, Treasure Coast
WPTV called the National Weather Service's headquarters to inquire about the issue.
By phone, a spokesperson told Bohman that the agency did its job, issuing warnings before tornadoes touched down.
So why didn't these critical alerts reach cellphones in Palm Beach County?
"There can be multiple causes for this situation," Dr. Tal Lavian, a nationally known expert on wireless communications systems, said.
Lavian, who is based in California, said some cellphones are too outdated to receive these alerts.
In other cases, Lavian said alerts may not make it to cellphones if wireless phone towers lose power or have damaged equipment.
Lavian said in rural areas — in advance of an oncoming hurricane — cell service could strain a tower's capacity, especially when people make video calls.
He said that video calls like FaceTime or Zoom use 100 or more times the data of a regular wireless phone call.
"Everybody wants to send the messages to the kids, friends, neighbors," Lavian said. "Everyone wants to be on video conference."
We know from social media that some people in and around Wellington did receive alerts.
And we also know people who complained of receiving too many emergency alerts have the option to turn those alerts off in their settings.
But when WPTV asked Kincaid to show me her phone, Bohman could see that these alerts were turned on.
"Amber Alerts, emergency alerts, public safety alerts [were on]," she noted as she wanted to know why she didn't receive an alert at such a critical time.
WPTV will keep pressing to find out what's going on after many people — who were too close to a tornado's path — didn't get the potentially life-saving warning they needed.
