Albertans were startled by several emergency alerts this afternoon (March 1).

The province's emergency alert system was being tested, but instead of one notification, between eight and ten were sent out.

To make matters worse, these tests went out over phones, radio, and television, so many people got extra doses of the blaring alarm noise at once.

A few hours later, Alberta's Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services Mike Ellis issued a statement about the test.

According to Ellis, a glitch led to multiple notifications being sent out.

He says the National Public Alerting System is working with the Alberta Public Alerting team to figure out what exactly went wrong.

"Incidents like the one that occurred are exactly why we conduct testing on the Alert System. We need to ensure that the system is working as intended during an actual emergency to protect Albertans... We recognize the disruption these multiple alerts caused Albertans and are addressing this issue as quickly as possible to ensure the system works as intended so we can keep Albertans safe during an emergency."