Imagine you’re just enjoying a beautiful Saturday morning and then you receive a text alert on your phone that says ballistic missiles (presumably from North Korea) are headed your way and to seek immediate shelter because THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
The moment the EAS alert interrupted Hawaiian TV is terrifying pic.twitter.com/pVwpCBeRgD
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 13, 2018
Entire family had a heart attack when my brother sent this text. pic.twitter.com/VlqmUM5OF8
— Robin Abcarian (@AbcarianLAT) January 13, 2018
Well, folks in Hawaii received that exact message today, but as it turns out, it was a false alarm:
HAWAII – THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. pic.twitter.com/DxfTXIDOQs
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2018
NO missile threat to Hawaii.
— Hawaii EMA (@Hawaii_EMA) January 13, 2018
The ballistic missile warning that was issued is a FALSE alarm. Repeat FALSE alarm.
— Mayor Kirk Caldwell (@MayorKirkHNL) January 13, 2018
No word yet on why the message was sent, but if you’re in Hawaii and you know peeps who are hunkered down in some bunker waiting for the end of the world, you might want to give them a heads up that all’s cool…for now.
UPDATE:
Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency spokesman said the agency had been performing a standard drill and normally an alert wouldn't be sent, so they suspect a technical issue occurred: "We have absolutely no indication it was any kind of hacking."
— Amber Jamieson (@ambiej) January 13, 2018
CNN: Missile Alert went out after the "wrong" button was pushed during shift change
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) January 13, 2018
Army Lt. Col. Derrick Cheng, a PACOM spokesman, said that once the military confirmed that there was no incoming fire, it still needed to touch base with Hawaiian state officials before issuing messages about the incident to make sure it was not confusing the issue even more. 1/2
— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) January 13, 2018
“We had to go through the appropriate checks and balances,” Cheng said. “We at PACOM still need to confirm exactly what happened, and work with our state departments on that. It’s looking through the redundancies, and some of the checks and balances.” 2/2
— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) January 13, 2018
