Tsunami Warning mistakenly sent to phones

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - People across the East Coast of the United States received a Tsunami Warning alert on Tuesday but officials say it is just a test.

The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center ran a monthly Tsunami Warning test at 8:30 a.m. but some users received the test message as an actual Tsunami Warning.

The message stated at the top that a warning was in effect until 9:28 a.m. Further down in the body of the alert it mentioned that the alert was a test. 

"A Tsunami Warning is not in effect. Repeat, a Tsunami Warning is not in effect," several National Weather Center offices posted on Twitter.

At least one private sector company released the text message as an official Tsunami Warning, resulting in widespread reports of tsunami warnings received via phones and other media.

Four hours after the alert was sent, AccuWeather issued a statement.

"This morning AccuWeather passed on a National Weather Service Tsunami Warning that was intended by the NWS to be a test but was miscoded by the NWS as a real warning," AccuWeather said. "While the [word 'test' was] in the header, the actual codes read by computers used coding for real warning, indicating it was a real warning."

The New York office of the NWS said it was trying to find out how the message went out as a warning.