Not a good thing to wake up to. Image: Tulsi Gabbard/Twitter
“An employee pushed the wrong button” was the early explanation behind the false alarm of a missile threat had people in Hawaii thinking their world would end Saturday morning. I don’t think I’m unlike many people who would wonder what that “wrong button” must look like.
On Sunday, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency gave a bit more in-depth explanation of the mix up that sent millions of people into a wave of panic. Ironically, it turns out the warning that was “not a drill” was, in fact, the result of a pretty standard drill. Around 8:05 am, a timeline released by the state shows an internal test of the emergency missile warning system was started. It’s a drill the agency has been running recently to practice for pretty much exactly what ensued, only the message that went out, EMERGENCY MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL, was never meant to reach the public. The employee running the test was given two options from a drop-down computer menu: “Test Missile Alert” and “Missile Alert.” He didn’t choose the test option, a mistake that took a full 38 minutes to even start clearing up. It was all as simple as using the drop-down menu on your laptop and clicking “save” instead of “save as.” Technically, the agency did post a follow-up tweet at 8:20 am, saying there was no actual missile threat. But the widespread cellphone alert notifying everybody it was all just a false alarm didn’t go out until 8:45 am.
In the aftermath, the EMA has added a couple of safeguards to avoid letting the same thing happen again. First, there’s now a template to immediately send out the false alarm message that took more than half an hour to reach people in Hawaii Saturday morning. Second, a manager will now be on hand to give confirmation before the warning message can be sent out in both tests and in case of a real-life threat. And since many people are also probably curious what happened to the guy behind it all, an agency representative told CNN Sunday that he’s been disciplined and reassigned but not fired.
