A 6-year-old with special needs was found miles away from home Monday, missing for three hours after he disappeared from the front yard of his northeast Portland home.

The City of Portland initiated its reverse 9-1-1 system Monday, sending text, voice and email alerts -- at least to its alert subscribers in the northeast Portland area -- soon after the boy's family reported him missing.

Now the boy's mother, Laura Young, is calling this "a huge misunderstanding" with the school district.

Young told KOIN her son was playing in the front yard of their home near Northeast 66th Avenue and Going Street when a passing school bus driver accidentally picked up her son. The bus was headed for special needs summer school classes at the Vestal school.

More than a dozen volunteer searchers, along with two search dogs, looked for the boy for hours. Portland police also blocked off the area in front of the house and began interviewing neighbors. One next-door neighbor saw the little boy talking to the bus driver early Monday morning; that tip led police to the school on 82nd Avenue between Burnside and Glisan streets, where the little boy was found in class.

Three hours after little Timmy went missing, he was back home again.

"I was ripping around my neighborhood at 100 miles an hour, screaming my son's name out the window for three hours," Young recalls, now that Timmy's back home. "But he's safe and fine, and we're happy."

KOIN Local 6 is the news partner of The Pamplin Media Group.