Did your phone make an alarming noise Thursday afternoon at 2:53? Mine did, and I was sure it was a tornado warning being issued. However, it was nothing related to the weather but instead said it was a test AMBER Alert.

The problem is, no one seems to know who sent it. Iowa's Department of Public Safety usually sends out those alerts, but not this time. Did the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children send it? Was the system hacked? Those are questions still to be answered, but this is the second problem involving AMBER Alert in Iowa in the last 30 days.

The last time a real AMBER Alert was sent was May 29. That day, a mom and four-month-old from Waterloo were found about a half hour after the alert was issued. The alert officially went out at 9:29 a.m that day. However, a server error caused the AMBER Alert not to reach cell phones until 10:07 that morning.

Bob James
Bob James
loading...

Here's hoping they get to the bottom of what happened yesterday, and that's it's the last issue we have with the AMBER Alert system here in Iowa. It's far too important.

More From 98.1 KHAK