PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Across the central and East Valley, hundreds of thousands of people were jolted awake early Sunday morning to a Turquoise Alert , a new emergency notification system in Arizona designed to help locate missing people who could be in danger.

At 5:23 a.m. Sunday, phones buzzed with information about a missing teenage girl. It was Arizona’s third “Turquoise Alert” since the system was launched in July. However, the timing of the alert and other discrepancies are causing a stir on social media about whether the program is effective.

According to officials with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, this alert was sent to people in a specific geotargeted area . If you were outside the zone early Sunday morning, you would not have received a notification unless you

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