False Missile Alert In Hawaii Causes Panic And Raises Questions And Concerns
Fortunately, yesterday's missile alert in Hawaii was a false alarm. However, it is raising questions about the early warning system that's in place and the state's preparedness in case of an actual attack.
Yesterday Hawaiians woke up to something truly terrifying, a message coming across via text message, social media, television, and radio that a ballistic missile was headed to the islands. The message ended with the ominous words “This is not a drill,” words well known in Hawaii as being the final sentence of the first and only warning that was issued just minutes before the Japanese began their attack on Pearl Habor on the morning December 7, 1941 at virtually the same time that this warning was broadcast, shortly after 8:00 am yesterday morning. The obvious implication of the warning was that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of America’s 50th state and that the authorities had reason to believe that it was armed with a nuclear warhead. Across the islands, people reacted about as you might expect, huddling in a safe room somewhere in their house if they were able to or, in some cases, waiting and worried that they could be just minutes away from either annihilation. As it turned out, of course, the whole thing was a false alarm, but that is only raising the level of concern and leaves people wondering just how prepared Hawaii and the rest of the United States is in case the unthinkable really does happen:
An early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack was dispatched to cellphones across Hawaii on Saturday, setting off widespread panic in a state that was already on edge because of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.
The alert, sent by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, was revoked 38 minutes after it was issued, prompting confusion over why it was released — and why it took so long to rescind. State officials and residents of a normally tranquil part of the Pacific, as well as tourists swept up in the panic, immediately expressed outrage.
“What happened today was totally unacceptable,” said Gov. David Y. Ige. “Many in our community were deeply affected by this. I am sorry for that pain and confusion that anyone might have experienced.”
Officials said the alert was the result of human error and not the work of hackers or a foreign government. The mistake occurred during a shift-change drill that takes place three times a day at the emergency command post, according to Richard Rapoza, a spokesman for the agency.
“Someone clicked the wrong thing on the computer,” he said.
State officials said that the agency and the governor began posting notices on Facebook and Twitter announcing the mistake, but that a flaw in the alert system delayed sending out a cellphone correction. As a result, they said a “cancellation template” would be created to make it easier to fix mistaken alerts. A new procedure was instituted Saturday requiring two people to sign off before any such alert is sent.
At no time, officials said, was there any indication that a nuclear attack had been launched on the United States. The Federal Communications Commission announced that it had begun “a full investigation into the FALSE missile alert in Hawaii.”
The alert went out at about 8:10 a.m., lighting up phones of people still in bed, having coffee by the beach at a Waikiki resort, or up for an early surf. “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” it read.
Hawaii has been on high emotional alert — it began staging monthly air-raid drills, complete with sirens, in December — since President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, began exchanging nuclear threats. Estimates vary, but it would take a little more than half an hour for a missile launched from North Korea to reach Hawaii, traversing an arc of roughly 5,700 miles. State officials said that residents here would have as little as 12 minutes to find shelter once an alert was issued.
Within moments of the first announcement, people flocked to shelters, crowding highways in scenes of terror and helplessness. Emergency sirens wailed in parts of the state, adding to the panic.
“I was running through all the scenarios in my head, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to pull over to,” said Mike Staskow, a retired military captain.
Allyson Niven, who lives in Kailua-Kona, said her first instinct was to gather her family as she contemplated what she thought would be her final minutes alive.
“We fully felt like we were about to die,” she said. “I drove to try to get to my kids even though I knew I probably wouldn’t make it, and I fully was visualizing what was happening while I was on the road. It was awful.”
Ray Gerst was vacationing on Oahu with his wife to celebrate their 28th wedding anniversary. He received the alert as they pulled up for their tour of Kualoa Ranch.
“All the buses stopped, and people came running out of the ranch and said, ‘Just sit still for a minute, nobody get off the bus, nobody get off the bus,'” he said.
They were taken into the mountains, Mr. Gerst said, and dropped off at a concrete bunker. They sheltered in place for about 15 minutes, he said, during which time they had no cell signal.
“It was scary,” Mr. Gerst said. “I mean, there was no intel.”
(…)
Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said the mistake was “totally inexcusable.”
“The whole state was terrified,” he said. “There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process.”
While the cellphone alerting system is in state authorities’ hands, the detection of missile launches is the responsibility of the United States Strategic Command and Northern Command. It was the military — not Hawaiian officials — that was the first to declare there was no evidence of a missile launch.
The false alert was a stark reminder of what happens when the old realities of the nuclear age collide with the speed — and the potential for error — inherent in the internet age. The alert came at one of the worst possible moments — when tension with North Korea has been at one of the highest points in decades, and when Mr. Kim’s government has promised more missile tests and threatened an atmospheric nuclear test.
(…)
The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency has been holding “are you ready” drills. As a chain of islands, Hawaii is subject to all kinds of threats — hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis — but officials have made clear that none is more urgent now than the threat of an attack by North Korea, given how little time there would be between an alert and the detonation of a bomb.
The fifth page of an emergency preparation pamphlet issued by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency features a picture of a rocket lifting off: “Nuclear Threat — Unlikely But Cannot Ignore It.”
Vern T. Miyagi, the administrator of the agency, said that during the drill, an employee — whom he did not identify — mistakenly pushed a button on a computer screen to send out the alert, rather than one marked to test it. He said the employee answered “yes” when asked by the system if he was sure he wanted to send the message.
Mr. Miyagi, going through a detailed timeline of the events at an afternoon news conference, said the agency tried to correct the error on social media. It took 38 minutes to send out a follow-up message canceling the original alert, which he acknowledged was a shortcoming with the alert system that the agency would fix.
Mr. Rapoza said he did not know if anyone would be disciplined for the mistake. “At this point, our major concern is to make sure we do what we need to do to reassure the public,” he said. “This is not a time for pointing fingers.”
The panic that followed the alert — if relatively short-lived — gripped the islands. There were reports of people seeking shelter by parking their cars inside a highway tunnel that cuts through a mountain. When the announcement was rescinded, a digital highway sign read: “Missile alert in error: There is no threat.”
The text alert that was sent out is depicted above, and a similar message apparently went out over Twitter and via the emergency alerts that can be sent to cell phones in emergency situations. Additionally, the alert also made its way to television:
Holy hell this is terrifying.
This is the exact moment the Hawaii Emergency Alert System for the Ballistic Missile alert interrupted Hawaiian TV. #Hawaii #BallisticMissle #EAS pic.twitter.com/gzLCBgqHVG— Chris Strider (@stridinstrider) January 13, 2018
It took a full 38 minutes for the authorities to send out the message that the missile threat was an error, although it’s worth noting that Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was doing her best to spread that message on social media well before that. If there had been an actual missile launch, it’s estimated that Hawaiians would have at most 15 minutes from the time of the warning, which went out at roughly 8:07 am Hawaii Standard Time according to screenshots sent on social media by many people on the ground in the Aloha State, to find shelter and prepare for either a nearby impact or the fallout that would follow if there was indeed a nuclear attack. Even Congresswoman Gabbard’s social media statement stating that there was no threat didn’t come until about 12 minutes after the initial alert, although that appears to be due to the fact that it took her that long to verify that fact with state and military officials. That means, of course, that the withdrawal of the alert came long after it would have mattered and likely did very little to calm the nerves of the 1.5 million people who live there, or the thousands of people who were vacationing there and wondering if they had just bought a one-way ticket to annihilation.
As expected, the events of the day have already caused public officials and others to ask a number of questions about the reliability of emergency warning systems not only in Hawaii but nationwide. The fact that something that appears for all the world can be sent out, not only via text message and social media but also via television and radio, as easily as via the inadvertent pushing of a button raises a lot more questions than it answers, and there ought to be a full investigation by state and Federal authorities alike, although this appears for all the world to be strictly a failure at the state level in which neither the military nor the Federal Government played a role. Additionally, as Jazz Shaw notes this morning, there are some people who are raising questions about whether the state government’s report on what happened is completely accurate. In that regard, The Atlantic has an article quoting an official from Hawaii’s emergency mangement agency that offers a somewhat different perspective on the initial official explanation:
According to [Hawaii Emergency Management Agency representative Richard] Rapoza, the agency was undergoing a shift change. “During shift change they do a drill and somebody clicked the wrong thing on a computer,” he said. To send a meaningful all-clear notice, which appeared about a half hour later (“There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. Repeat. False Alarm.”) required properly composing and offsending a new IPAWS civil emergency message.
So how could this happen? For many reasons. In part, it’s because emergency systems have long decoupled from the threat of war in general, let alone global thermonuclear war specifically, even as they’ve become incredibly robust at sending peacetime messages. In part, it’s because media have splintered and fragmented, making it hard to get detailed official messages to everyone. In part, though, it’s because media have consolidated in devices everyone holds in their hands and pockets, but which work best with small quantities of narrow-bandwidth information. And, in part, it’s because someone pressed the wrong button on a computer, which then did exactly what it was programmed to do.
This, of course, raises a whole host of questions, including why they’d be holding a drill in the middle of a shift change, which is undoubtedly a point in time when the likelihood that confusion and missteps are the most likely. It’s true, of course, that had there been an actual attack it could have been happening in the middle of a shift change to take advantage of this very fact, and the authorities need to be prepared and train for that possibility. At the same time, however, it seems as though there ought to be some kind of safeguard during a drill to prevent an actual alert from being sent out without the need for further clarification. This is especially true given the fact that one would logically expect that any missile warning that came to state authorities would have first been passed on by the military, specifically by either NORAD or the U.S. Pacific Command, which is in charge of the military forces in Hawaii and elsewhere in the Pacific. In this case, there was no such warning issued and in fact apparently no communication at all between state authorities before the alert was sent out. Given all of that, it seems clear that some changes need to be made to current procedures to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. If not, then it’s possible that we’ll end up something akin to the boy who cried wolf, and that some future warning of an actual attack won’t be taken as seriously as it ought to be.
Had this happened two years ago with Obama in the White House: “Nah, it’s b.s. Pass me some more roast pork and poi.”
Because this happened under an unstable clown who has been provoking war: “Run! Ruuuun!“
“And, in part, it’s because someone pressed the wrong button on a computer, which then did exactly what it was programmed to do.”
Anyone picturing Trump’s tiny hand poised over his big nuclear button on his desk? (The one right next to his Diet Coke order button.)
I don’t think the identity of the POTUS matters, and I don’t think the situation vis a vis North Korea would be substantively different had Clinton won the election. Kim Jong Un is moving ahead on the nuclear and missile programs for reasons that have nothing to do with the identity of the American President and everything to do with securing his position and making it more difficult for outside forces to either dislodge him or threaten his rule.
I can easily see what happened yesterday happening two years ago, or happening even if HRC were President.
It’s also worth noting that this was entirely a failure at the state level and that the Federal Government wasn’t involved in the process that led the erroneous message to be sent out.
I find it kind of funny that if I lived in Hawaii, it’s entirely possible I wouldn’t have known about this until well after it was over..
@OzarkHillbilly:
That was apparently the case for many people. Especially since the early warning sirens were the one part of the system unaffected by the false command.
I know nothing about the technology of the hardware and software involved here, but perhaps it should be made a little less easy to hit this button accidentally, if that’s indeed what happened.
I mean, if you have to break the glass to pull a fire alarm, shouldn’t a “button” that sends out this kind of a warning have a bit more protection against accident?
I wonder just how effective the warning system is today with fewer and fewer people connected to broadcast . They can send out text messages, but I’ve never seen a test, so I suspect the first time the younger generation will
A few years ago my I was watching an episode of (I think) Elementary with my wife and two teenagers. At the end the kids commented on how they had ruined the plot by introducing a ridiculous element that somehow the government would have a system in place to instantly take over TV and radio stations to broadcast in an emergency. When we explained that this system really existed, we got that teen aged look that roughly translates as “words are coming out of the old people’s mouth, and it’s some exaggeration about “when I was a kid”. Tune out now!” Now, we hadn’t owned a television in their whole lives, and everything they saw at home was through a computer monitor. We don’t have anything against television, just really hate commercials, so we were probably streaming the episode through iTunes. In the car they listened to tapes or CDs and later plugged headphones into their devices. We realized that they had simply never been exposed to the weekly tests.
Of course, they were an anomaly, but society has now moved in their direction. More and more kids are raised without consuming broadcast.
@Doug Mataconis:
When people hear an alert they don’t automatically assume it’s true. At least I don’t. I would ask myself first if this alert was likely to be true or likely to be a mistake. Had I been in Hawaii two years ago and heard this alert I’d have calmly taken another sip of my mai tai. This alert was terrifying because the ground was prepared. A level of plausibility must be reached and Trump accomplished that: nuclear war is now quite thinkable.
Alert: Alien Invasion!
Me: Nope.
Alert: Canadian army invades Montana!
Me: Nope.
Alert: Missile inbound! (2015)
Me: Nope.
Alert: Missile inbound! (2018)
Me: Ruuuun!
@CSK:
Or at least an “Are you sure you want to do this?” doublecheck of some kind.
On the other hand, I can see why it would be important to get the message out as soon as possible in the case of a real emergency, especially since Hawaiians would have, at best, 15 minutes to get to shelters or a safe space. Of course, as one of Hawaii’s Senators made clear during an interview on CNN yesterday the truth of the matter is that there really isn’t a reliable network of fallout shelters or otherwise safe spaces. The ones that existed in the past were closed many years ago.
At the same time, this whole early warning system seems like it would be in better shape in a place like Hawaii, which often has to deal with Hurricane and Tsunami warnings, although in those cases there is usually a lot more time for people to react.
@michael reynolds:
I get what you’re saying, but it’s also worth noting that this increased attention on a ballistic missile threat is relatively new for Hawaii. I’m not even sure that it existed two years ago. And, as I said, it seems clear that Kim would have been proceeding down this road without regard to the identity of the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Perhaps you’re right that people would have reacted differently under different circumstances, but it strikes me that that this isn’t really all that relevant a point. The EWS system is in place, and it failed miserably in what was arguably it’s first real-time test. State and local officials have a lot to answer for.
@Doug Mataconis:..Or at least an “Are you sure you want to do this?” doublecheck of some kind.
From your item as posted:
@Doug Mataconis:
If the citizenry has only 15 minutes to react and there is no wide spread availability of shelters, perhaps it would be best not to issue a warning in the first place.
@Sleeping Dog: But this incident has let the citizenry know that there is no plan. Now they get to decide what to do about that.
@michael reynolds & @Doug Mataconis:
Doug’s large point not withstanding, I think specific context of our historical moment is critical here.
One of the things that isn’t often discussed in coverage of the panic surrounding Orson Welles’ *War of the Worlds* was that more people thought it was a *German* invasion, not an alien one. The reason for this is that the news media had been reporting for quite some time on the beginnings of WW2 in Europe. Welles had structured the script to play into the type of breaking news War report that Americans were becoming accustom to. And there was already speculation in the news about Germany eventually attacking the US.
If the War of the Worlds broadcast had happened a few years prior, there’s a good chance it never would have had the same broad effect.
I suspect that the same is true for this event and all the subsequent coverage.
@Mister Bluster:
I was thinking something a bit more secure than that.
@Doug Mataconis: I live in Honolulu, and no it was not the same 2 years ago. Furthermore, the previous POTUS would have addressed this issue and spoken to the people of Hawaii, a state which he regularly visited. 2 years ago we did not have official dissemination of attack preparedness, tests of the missile sirens, or tweets about whose button is bigger.
I do think the news reporting is overstating how much we feared for our lives directly. But there are many here who remember the war years, and we all know how vulnerable these islands are in terms of economy, dependence on shipping food and energy, strategic target, and in actual range of missiles from NK.
@Sleeping Dog: On the most populated island of Oahu, most people will be able to at least get indoors within 15 minutes. Those already inside have time to fill containers with water. Being inside greatly reduces deaths and injuries. Yes, we need the warning here. I was at a gas station, I had time to get back to my family.
A Season Two episode of the original Hawaii Five-0 titled ‘Forty feet high and it kills’ involved a fake tsunami alert. It was all part of a plot by Wo Fat to kidnap a famous geneticist (Played by Will Geer who may be best remembered for playing Grandpa Walton on the Waltons) who happened to be in the islands at the time. At the episode’s end a deal is struck by McGarrett and Wo Fat. The geneticist is released and Wo Fat is allowed to leave the islands.
In the episode it is never mentioned if the public learned the truth behind the fake alert. So what dastardly criminal got away yesterday? 😉
A couple of points about the emergency plans in Hawaii. I lived there on and off base when young. The story was that during the cold war there were no real drills in the event of an attack. The main island Oahu is 30 miles across at its widest point with a mountain range in the middle. In the cold war Hickam Air Force Base, Pearl Harbor and Kaneohe Marine Corp Air Station on the other side of the island were definite targets. The modeling showed the the whole island would be in the fireball so they did not see any point in scaring kids by having them duck under their desks. I am guessing any plans dealing with a nuclear NK would have been dusting off cold war plans as a starting point. While I think any updated plans dealing with an NK threat should have a different approach I don’t think the infrastructure exists for sheltering much of the population. There are few basements and most of the housing is single wall construction designed for ventilation without much protection from fallout. Reading a bit from people there I think the approach I agreed with was Mai Tais on the beach while you wait for impact.
@Bill:
Up-vote for Wo Fat, such a good villain even the remake of Hawaii 5-0 had to resurrect him. Ask any fan of the original series to name the main players and you’d get Steve, Dan-o, Chin Ho, Kono and. . . Wo Fat. Name the characters in Moby Dick and you get Ishmael, Ahab, Queequeg and. . . the eponymous villain, Moby Dick.
There’s nothing better than a great villain. Why are the two best Star Wars movies still the first two? Darth Vader. What’s missing from the other prequels and sequels? Darth Vader. Why is the most recent sequel better? Because we can kind of see Adam Driver as a plausible replacement for. . . Darth Vader.
@CSK: I thought that the Air Force command had the top responsibility for detection, verification, and response. I had not heard of a state having the ability and authority to call an alert. Certainly it should not be possible for the wrong button to be pushed and a full scale alert issued.
I don’t know what we would have done it that had happened here. I would not know where the shelter is. That is if there even is one. Our church used to have one down in the basement, complete with the yellow outdoor signs, emergency food and water containers. I think it was dismantled back in the 1980’s. By then the supplies were twenty some years old.
It brings memories of that movie “War Games” –
General Beringer: “sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that your new defense system sucks”
@michael reynolds:
I’m a big fan of the original Five O. I only watched a couple of first season episodes of the reboot. It seems all police dramas today have to be part soap opera and if I wanted to watch soap operas I’d watch them. The original Five O on only rare occasions (Engaged to be buried, Once upon a time, Deadly Screamer and some others) did episodes involving the character’s family connections. Today it seems all crime shows have to delve into this. CSI Miami, which I watched for its camp value, became more melodrama as the show aged. Law and Order which stayed away from personal relationships of its main characters (except for a brief time when Benjamin Bratt was on the show and the show’s last few seasons after Sam Waterston became DA) for most of its run.
Forty feet high and it kills was one of the top 20 if not top 10 episodes of the original show. The presence of Wo Fat and Will Geer’s great guest performance make it memorable. The geneticist was more than a match for Wo Fat.
@Michael Reynolds: In much the same way why Star Trek II was the best of the Trek films because of Khan…the best stories always have the best villains…
@An Interested Party:..the best stories always have the best villains
See John Houston’s character Noah Cross in Chinatown.
Evil Incarnate.
@Tyrell:
If I try to close without following the normal protocols the editing program I often use, I get a message saying: “Are you sure you want to close this page?” Same for my email if I abandon an email without finishing it, or sending it to draft: “DO YOU WANT TO CANCEL THIS?”
My email and editing program do not deal with cosmic issues. No one will be hurt–even me–if I close them without following protocol.
That makes it mindboggling that the incoming ballistic missile message was sent because the person sitting at at the console hit “the button” accidentally and it just went through, boom, like that. There was no message on the screen that said: “Whoopsie! You sure you wanna do this?” None? NOTHING?
Warnings like this are a State responsibility. The federal government, much less the military, have no authority to direct the civilian population of a state or locality, excepting direct federal activities. Martial law is only constitutional in areas of active military combat operations. You issue the warning, the state EMA decides whether to issue a warning. The state has the police power to order people off the public streets.
There is no Hollywood set up in most of these places. The warnings are just messages on computers, press send to, well, send. Although they did say it took two presses, so there must at least be a confirmation required.
BTW, by the questions at the press conference, it seems someone set off the warning sirens which are not under the control of the EMA. Probably, as a response to the official civil warning message.
Also, why does everyone think “ballistic” missile means nuclear warhead? Ballistic just means the missile is coming in due to gravity.
@CSK: There was a former defense official today who said about the same thing – no way that this warning could have been sent out to the public without some verifications and authorizations from higher up. The idea that simply the wrong button got hit seems implausible.
There are some other ideas floating around now. Let me add that I am not some conspiracy fan.
One is that this was a test by the government – some sort of psychological study to see how the public would react.
Another is that someone somehow got into the system and did this for reasons unknown. The way that the message is in all caps is unusual.
One other idea is that some craft got onto the radar and was on a path to Hawaii, and then left just as quickly: either a military craft or some unidentified craft not from earth.
Those are some of the theories that have come up just today. I am sure that there will be more. To me, the idea that someone broke into the system and did this is certainly plausible.
I wonder if this is one of those things that will just slip away and we will not hear anymore about it. (Las Vegas shooting?)
Let me repeat that I am not some conspiracy enthusiast.
I wonder if this is one of those things that will just slip away and we will not hear anymore about it. (Las Vegas shooting?)
The Las Vegas shooting has not “sliped away”.
All you need to do is a google search to come up with reports as recent as 5 hours ago.
I am always suspicious when a government official says “now is not the time to place blame”
That’s shorthand for “we better try and short circuit any investigation on who are the true phuck ups”.
I read the story up until I saw that the administrator is Mr. Miyagi.
Fake News!! Pat Morita is no longer with us.
North Korea Solution:
The logical way to Calm North Korea is simple.
We need to increase delivery of food and medicines foreign aid.
We should help N. Korean people out of their poverty even it is only in small steps.
Those few tyrants who run the country are acting out of fear and insecurity. They may have some reason for that. U.S. Covert actions have been very upsetting to many countries. Not an envious moral history there.
Donald Trump seems to be much like a short – sighted teenager. He demands that North Korea do this and that. They are in fear and take pride in bravado. Very stupid to add threats and sanctions upon more threats. Only forces a nuclear conflict.
Better to stop adding sanctions that only increase misery to the people and do an about face by providing help in the form of foreign aid.
I have seen our foreign aid as bags of grain loaded on ships. Each bag has our red maple leaf and Canada label on them. These gifts from Canada make a big difference to the mind set of North Korean citizens.
Consider the total stupidity of tough nuclear threats talk. North Korea would have to hit an impossible number of Nato nuclear launch sites all at once to avoid a devastating nuclear blow-back. Impossible, as there are submarine platforms on the move that can not be pin-pointed. Not to mention Guam, Panama, Hawaii, Alaska and mainland USA bases.
Time to control Trump’s angry mouth and to do the only reasonable thing to curb the risk of Nuclear poison for Mother Earth. Oil spills, plastics and chemical pollution are killing our oceans as it is. We still have a chance of recovery, but once atomic radiation is circulating the globe, there is no possible recovery.
Donald Trump is putting us all at huge Nuclear Risk. One who boasts that his ‘Red Button’ is bigger than North Korea’s is simply missing the point and giving into childish anger. Diplomacy has existed for centuries and for good reason.
PhotoTonyG.blogspot.com
This is interesting: huge fireball lights up skies in Michigan, causes earthquake. Meteor?
Why no alert for that? And if it did crash, have they found it?