GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Brown County authorities are working to determine why an alert meant for one Green Bay neighborhood was also sent outside the area.

The Brown County Emergency management center says it is better to be safe than sorry.

“We understand it was not coinvent for extra people to get the message, but we would rather have more people notified than not enough,” said Lauri Maki, Brown County emergency management director. 

On Tuesday night, an emergency alert sent out by Brown County Emergency management reached residents far outside the neighborhood near Edgewood Drive on the east side of Green Bay. Brown County’s emergency management director says a glitch in the “CodeRED System” led to some residents getting the alert without even living in the area. 

“We send a message to a specified area and those people in the specified area are supposed to receive it with some outside that are getting the message. Obviously, last night the overspray was quite drastic, so we are trying to work with the state to fix those issues moving forward,” said Maki. 

Green Bay Police commander Kevin Warych says the mishandling of the alert did not affect their crew’s response and that authorities are working to ensure that future alerts are sent to the right people. 

“It was a coordinated effort with the fire service and WPS to make sure that that area was safe, and we were very successful in doing so, in this scenario a lot of people got it that didn’t need it we’ll fix that, we’ll clean that up, but in future incidents it’s important for the police department, fire, to get that information out and make sure people at least know what’s going on in their neighborhood,” said Warych. 

To sign up for Brown County’s emergency alerts, text ‘BROWNCOUNTYWI’ to 99411.