A boil order was issued Wednesday night for State Center, due to some work on the community’s water tower. That order remains in effect. For Marshall County Emergency Management Coordinator Kim Elder, it turned into a small nightmare.

When she receives an alert such as last night, she enters into the state’s Iowa Alert program to, yes, alert residents. Usually it’s smooth process; not that night. The second part of the alert went out first, the first part went out second and there was some general confusion regarding who was under the boil order.

While Iowa Alert sends out text messages, it also calls landlines and Elder say she also had complaints that the computer-generated voice was not understandable. Elder says she has contacted the folks at Iowa Alert in an attempt to eliminate confusion the next time she needs to send out an alert.