Hawaii alert: Employee who sent missile warning reassigned

The unnamed employee who mistakenly sent a missile alert which caused panic in the US state of Hawaii on Saturday has been temporarily reassigned to other duties, a US official has said.

People across the state received text messages warning of an imminent attack.

The US media regulator says the mistake was "absolutely unacceptable".

Hawaii did not have "reasonable safeguards or process controls" in place to prevent the false alert, it said.

The 38-minute delay in issuing the correction made it worse, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said.

Why was the alert sent?

The error occurred when, during a drill after a shift change, an employee made the wrong selection from a drop-down computer menu, picking the real-life missile alert instead of the test option, officials at Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency (EMA) said.

To prevent a repeat, two employees are now required to activate the alert system - one to issue the warning and another to confirm it, they said.

The agency also now has a way of issuing an immediate false-alarm notice in the event of a mistake, they added.

Residents and visitors to Hawaii were shocked to receive the false alert of an incoming ballistic missile, sent to their mobile phones early on Saturday morning. The alert was also broadcast on TV and radio stations.

Mobile phone users received the message at 08:07 (18:07 GMT): "Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill."

The eventual correction said: "There is no missile threat or danger to the state of Hawaii."

The alert system is in place because of the proximity of Hawaii to potential North Korean missiles.

Why was Hawaii already on edge?

North Korea's missile and nuclear programme is seen as a growing threat to the United States. Alaska and Hawaii are the US states closest to the country.In September, Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test.

Last month, Hawaii's Star-Advertiser reported that a missile launched from North Korea could strike the state within 20 minutes of launch.

So Hawaii has reintroduced Cold War-era warning sirens. During a test last month, it was reported that 93% of them worked properly, although some could hardly be heard and 12 mistakenly played the ambulance siren.

Citation:

“Hawaii Alert: Employee Who Sent Missile Warning Reassigned.” BBC News, BBC, 15 Jan. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42687978.

Response:

The details that are offered in this article seem to emphasize the way that Hawaii is unprepared and didn't respond well to the issue. I think that the bias of the author is against the false missile warning and the way that Hawaii responded. The purpose of the article was probably to urge people to advocate for change and push for adequate preparation for real missile crises. Overall, I think that the mistake was appalling and that they should have had a much quicker and stronger response than they did. I am coming into this with some bias, though, having lived through false alarms on a smaller scale with accidental sounding of lockdown sirens. I have seen the way that it affects people and the chaos that can erupt. When magnified to an entire state, I definitely think that a "reassignment" of the person responsible wasn't strong enough and that the systems Hawaii had in place were in no way proper if it was so easy to make such a mistake. I am, however, glad that they are pursuing ways to avoid this problem in the future.