Thinking about the bad user experience around this emergency alert I got last night:

Emergency alert: Extreme

ENDANGERED MISSING ADVISORY. Details at https://bit.ly/EMA0022025

I was a bit suspicious, especially in light of the recent inaccurate evacuation alerts that went to all 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. A bit.ly link for an official government alert, really?

I used the bit.ly preview tool to see where the link would go before clicking (add a + after the bit.ly link). It showed the destination was the @CHPAlerts Twitter account, so it was legitimate after all.

I get that Twitter is still a good way to get out emergency alerts and you want links that pop up on phones to be short, but it would probably be better if they used a short link on ca.gov so it looks official.