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alert, sent by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, was revoked 38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.”
At
Konawaena High School on the Island of Hawaii, where a high school
wrestling championship was taking place, school officials, more
accustomed to alerts of high surf or tsunamis, moved people to the
center of the gym as they tried to figure out how to take shelter from a
missile.
“Everyone
cooperated,” said Kellye Krug, the athletic director at the school.
“Once they were gathered, we let them use cellphones to reach loved
ones. There were a couple kids who were emotional, the coaches were
right there to console kids. After the retraction was issued, we gave
kids time to reach out again.”
Matt
LoPresti, a state representative, told CNN that he and his family
headed for a bathroom. “I was sitting in the bathtub with my children,
saying our prayers,” he said.
Natalie
Haena, 38, of Honolulu, said she was getting ready to take her daughter
to ice skating lessons when the alert came. “There’s nothing to prep
for a missile coming in,” she said. “We have no bomb shelters or
anything like that. There’s nowhere to go.”
In
Washington, Lindsay Walters, a deputy press secretary, said that
President Trump had been informed of the events. “The president has been
briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise,” she
said. “This was purely a state exercise.”
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.
During
the Cold War there were many false alarms. William J. Perry, the
defense secretary during the Clinton administration, recalled in his
memoir, “My Journey at the Nuclear Brink,” a moment in 1979 when, as an
under secretary of defense, he was awakened by a watch officer who
reported that his computer system was showing 200 intercontinental
ballistic missiles headed to the United States. “For one heart-stopping
second I thought my worst nuclear nightmare had come true,” Mr. Perry
wrote.
It
turned out that a training tape had been mistakenly inserted into an
early-warning system computer. No one woke up the president. But Mr.
Perry went on to speculate what might have happened if such a warning
had come “during the Cuban Missile Crisis or a Mideast war?”
The
United States faces an especially difficult problem today, not just
because of tense relations with North Korea but also because of growing
fears inside the military about the cyber vulnerability of the nuclear
warning system and nuclear control systems.
Because
of its location, Hawaii — more than any other part of the United States
— has been threatened by escalating tensions and the risks of war, and
preparations have already begun there.
On
Friday, the day before the erroneous alert, several hundred people
attended an event in Honolulu sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce in
which military commanders, politicians and others discussed the threat
to the islands’ population.
“The
U.S. is the designated recipient — and that’s because we are public
enemy No. 1 to North Korea,” Dan Leaf, a retired Air Force lieutenant
general and Pacific Command deputy commander, was quoted as saying in
The Honolulu Star Advertiser.
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.”
People
in Hawaii tend to know what to do to protect themselves to threats of a
tsunami or a hurricane. The prospect of nuclear annihilation was
entirely new terrain.
“So
this was the most terrifying few minutes of my LIFE!” Paul Wilson, a
professor at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, said on Twitter. “I just
want to know why it took 38 minutes to announce it was a mistake?!?”
Chris Tacker, a veteran who lives in Kealakekua, said the mistake had left her angry and frustrated.
“I
didn’t know where to go,” she said. “Anyone try to dig a hole in lava?
Good luck trying to build a shelter. I’m stocking my liquor cabinet.”
Still, she added, “If we don’t have our sense of humor about this, it’s all over.”
Correction: January 13, 2018
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a retired Air Force lieutenant general quoted in the Honolulu Star Advertiser. The general’s name is Dan Leaf, not Leak.
An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a retired Air Force lieutenant general quoted in the Honolulu Star Advertiser. The general’s name is Dan Leaf, not Leak.
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