After false Hawaii missile notice, FCC launches investigation

On Saturday, January 13, the people of Hawaii received a terrifying message on their phones, repeated on television and radio stations, which had received a similar alert: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

But actually, it was something of a drill, in that the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) was running a routine test at the end of a shift and accidentally sent the message state-wide.

Unfortunately, it took 38 minutes for the agency to correct the alert with a second alert. Although state leaders quickly tweeted out corrections, Hawaii citizens who were waiting for an all-clear from the same outlet spent more than half an hour in suspense.

What happened?

In a press conference on Saturday after the incident, Hawaii Governor David Ige said that "human error" had caused the false alarm.

"We are working to evaluate everything in the sequence of today’s activities, so a single person will not be able to make an error that triggers another false alarm," Ige said.

Vern Miyagi, Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency Administrator, also took the podium at the press conference to apologize.

"We spent the last few months trying to get ahead of this whole threat so that we could provide as much notification and preparation time to the public," Miyagi said. "...I accept responsibility for this, this is my team, we made a mistake."

Miyagi added that the message was sent in error when an employee accidentally designated that the message was supposed to be an "event" rather than a "test" in the software that sent notifications. The notification was sent via Wireless Emergency Alert to cellphone users, as well as to television and radio broadcast channels. HI-EMA did not have an automated way to send a cancellation of an "event" message, so it had to issue one manually, Governor Ige said in the press conference, which caused a delay in correcting the notification.

While HI-EMA issued clarifications on Facebook and Twitter, which Hawaii's leaders shared, the lack of an "all-clear" from the same outlet that the alert had come from caused concern.

In addition, some sirens throughout the state started blaring, while others remained silent. Governor Ige and Miyagi announced at the press conference that no sirens should have been engaged because the drill was supposed to occur internally, so the state would have to look into what actually happened.

HI-EMA said that immediately after the alert, the agency instituted a system that would require two people to sign off on a missile alert. It also created an automated way to cancel a missile alert in case of a mistake.

Miyagi added that despite the false alert, "the threat is there." He said Hawaii's missile defense system would provide citizens 12 to 13 minutes of preparation in the event of a real attack.

Reactions

Several minutes after the alert was sent out, Hawaii state representative Tulsi Gabbard tweeted "HAWAII - THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE." She later accused deteriorating relations with North Korea of fanning panic. "The people of Hawaiʻi should never have had to go through this," the representative tweeted. "The people of America should not be faced with this threat right now. We need peace—not political bickering. We have to talk to North Korea and find a peaceful path to get rid of this nuclear threat."