Drivers traveling on Seminole Woods Boulevard in Palm Coast Monday morning, June 30, were shocked (and some amused) by an inappropriate message displayed on a road sign.
Photos circulating on social media show the sign panel with the phrase “Fat hoes twerking.” In one video, the sign flashes between that and “next right,” directing people to said twerk fest.
“The City of Palm Coast is aware of a message board on Seminole Woods Boulevard that was displaying improper information early Monday morning,” the city’s director of communications and marketing, Brittany Kershaw, wrote in an email to The News-Journal.
According to Kershaw, the road sign is “owned and operated by a private contractor and is not under the control of the city.”
Kershaw said the contractor responsible for that specific road sign “is working on the EPIC Church site,” but she didn’t have the company’s name.
“But they left the box unlocked and someone with knowledge of how to program the board must have added the message,” she wrote. “We’re working with the contractor to ensure they lock their equipment so this doesn’t happen again.”
A woman reached at EPIC Church in the afternoon June 30 said she didn’t have any information about the incident but would reach out if church officials had comments.
The message has been disabled, Kershaw said, adding that the Flagler Sheriff’s Office has also been notified.
Palm Coast resident Jeremy Leonard heard about the sign and went to see it for himself. When he arrived on Seminole Woods Boulevard, he said the sign was off and someone was working on it. When he turned around and headed back toward Route 100, the sign was back on and working properly.
‘A little laugh to start my Monday’
Ellie Howard Harris was one of hundreds of drivers traveling on Seminole Woods Boulevard June 30 who was amused by the road sign display.
“I was on my way to show a home, and I saw that sign,” Harris, a real estate agent and Palm Coast resident, said in a phone interview. “I was a little startled at first; I knew (the sign) wasn’t supposed to be there, shouldn’t have been there.”
She said she had to do a “double take” as she passed by the sign “to make sure I saw that correctly.”
“It caught my attention, and I had a little laugh to start my Monday,” she added.
Several Facebook users have shared and commented on the photos showing the road sign’s message.
“City of Palm Coast needs to come check their sign on Seminole Woods Parkway,” wrote Rob Stiles.
In a video shared by Susan Taylor Stryker, the sign alternates between the inappropriate phrase and the words “next right!”
“Whoever hacked this sign in Palm Coast, Let’s meet up, you’re my new hero,” Stryker wrote in part.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Hacked digital road sign goes rogue in Palm Coast. Here’s what it (briefly) said
Reporting by Brenno Carillo, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
