By DINA ARÉVALO
Port Isabel-South Padre Press
editor@portisabelsouthpadre.com
Laguna Madre residents got a rude surprise on Tuesday morning in the form of a tsunami warning popping up on their smart phones.
At approximately 7:30 a.m., many people who use the Accuweather mobile app received a notification on their smartphones of a “severe weather alert” for a potential tsunami. The blurb which flashed on screen, superseding whatever else a user may have been looking at, said the source of the warning had come directly from the National Weather Service.
It was only when a user clicked on the notification bubble that they could see the warning message was a test. “THIS IS A TEST TO DETERMINE TRANSMISSION TIMES INVOLVED IN THE DISSEMINATION OF TSUNAMI INFORMATION,” read the alert bulletin once the Accuweather app was fully opened.
But it wasn’t just residents of Port Isabel, South Padre Island and Laguna Vista that got the message. Residents up the Texas coast in Galveston received it, as well, according to reporting by the Texas Tribune. So did people living in coastal communities along the Eastern Seaboard and the Caribbean.
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