At 8:01 a.m. (local time) people in Hawaii thought the day is end of their life. Across cellphone networks a message was transmitted warning everyone to take immediate shelter and it is not a drill.
Everyone believed, for 38 minutes, missiles were streaming across the sky with the unusual erroneous alert Saturday morning.
The state’s emergency management agency warned people that ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii.
The message resulted with residents seeking shelter and contact their relatives as if the day is end of their lives.
A subsequent message was sent reading the missile warning was a false alarm. Later, Gov. David Ige, D, described the frightening mistake was the errant push of a button by a state employee that prompted outrage.
The frightening mistake also prompted the US military to scan their systems and found no threat. However, the officials were confused how to correct a state-issued alert.
The first correction by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency was transmitted on Twitter, about 12 minutes after the first alert. The “no threat” message across the cellphone networks was transmitted at 8:45 a.m.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D, tweeted, “What happened today is totally inexcusable… The whole state was terrified. There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process.”
