Florida City Mystified by 'Zombie Activity' Alert

Somebody hacked warning system
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 24, 2018 3:14 AM CDT
Florida City Doesn't Know Who Sent Out Zombie Alert
A Zombie Walk in Prague, Czech Republic,   (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A zombie-free Florida city is trying to figure out who issued a zombie alert to thousands of people during a power outage early Sunday. "There are now far less than seven thousand three hundred and eighty customers involved due to extreme zombie activity,” the alert sent to cell phones warned residents of Lake Worth. "Restoration time uncertain." City spokesman Ben Kerr tells the Palm Beach Post that an investigation is ongoing. He says the city doesn't know who hacked the alert system, but they don't believe it was an employee or former employee. "No one was fired for it," Kerr says. "Now the system has been scrubbed and there will be no further zombie messaging until the actual zombie investigation comes."

The message warned of power outages and zombie activity in Lake Worth and "Terminus"—a fictional location from The Walking Dead. After the 27-minute power outage Sunday, Kerr said on Facebook that he was looking into reports of zombie alerts and wanted to "reiterate that Lake Worth does not have any zombie activity currently and apologize for the system message." Kerr says the culprit apparently edited some of the city's thousands of pre-prepared alert messages, USA Today reports. He says a similar warning popped up during Hurricane Irma, but it was quickly removed. "We thought we got them all, but it turns out there was one hiding in the system," he says. (Researchers say zombies would be able to overrun a city with frightening speed.)

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