People Across Hawaii Get a Govt Alert for an Inbound Imminent Missile Attack

This is troubling. This happened this morning (Sat). How much you wanna bet they did it to see how people would react? Also perhaps to condition people not to beleive it when the real thing happens.

Good Morning America, January 13, 2018

John Aaron and his wife woke up on their honeymoon in Hawaii this morning to a startling alert: A ballistic missile attack was imminent.

The emergency alert was blasted over the hotel’s public address system and sent to people’s mobile phones across Hawaii just after 8 a.m. local time. The message that appeared on phones read in all caps, “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

Aaron and his wife immediately grabbed their belongings and left their hotel room in picturesque Maui in search for a safe place. Everyone else around them was doing the same.

“A very chaotic and nerve-wracking scene,” said Aaron, a reporter for ABC affiliate WTOP in Washington, D.C. “Some people were crying, a lot of people were frantic.”

The newlyweds eventually took shelter in a hotel supply room, where they waited to receive more information.

PHOTO: A mistaken alert went out Saturday warning of a missile headed toward Hawaii, Jan. 13, 2018. (Obtained by ABC News)

Hawaii resident Rachel Uda Murdock said her family was “scared to death.”

In a video Murdock posted to Facebook, she said her family flew out of bed after receiving the alert but didn’t know what to do.

They started getting duct tape to seal windows and filling bathtubs with water, she said.

Then they found out the warning of an incoming missile was a mistake.

“I think someone just accidentally sent it and scared the whole island of Hawaii,” Murdock said.

The alert also rattled Hawaii resident Diane Cluxton and her husband, who were grocery shopping together on the Big Island when they received the emergency alert.

“My husband got it at the same time and then all of a sudden you heard all these “What?” throughout the store, because everybody was receiving it all at the same time,” Cluxton told ABC News. “One person actually sought shelter in a doorway waiting for some other notification, so it definitely looked like everybody received the alert.”

False emergency alert of imminent missile attack in Hawaii due to pushing of ‘wrong button’: Official

Correction messages were later sent out to mobile phones and read on PA systems in Hawaii. Television broadcast the correction via a scrolling red banner that read in part, “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, Dave Benham, told ABC News in a statement that no ballistic missile threat to Hawaii was detected.

“Earlier message was sent in error. State of Hawaii will send out a correction message as soon as possible,” Benham said.

Jittery morning in Maui even after all-clear given. Incoming ballistic missile – over the hotel PA – are the most terrifying words I have ever heard.

— John Aaron (@JohnAaronWTOP) January 13, 2018

Players on the PGA tour in in Honolulu for the Sony Open were rattled by the false alert, PGAtour.com reported on its website. Golfer John Peterson tweeted: “Under mattresses in the bathtub with my wife, baby and in laws. Please lord let this bomb threat not be real.” After the all-clear, he followed up with: “Man. How do you press the wrong button like that. COME ON MAN”

Man. How do you press the wrong button like that. COME ON MAN

— John Peterson (@JohnPetersonFW) January 13, 2018

A woman whose home has a bomb shelter that was built after the attack on Pearl Harbor bundled her children and the family dog into the underground bunker, ABC affiliate KITV reported.

Paraluman Stice-Durkin said she thought the threat was “totally real” since it came over the emergency response system and she had the.

“I went into mama-bear mode, my husband is out of town so I just knew that we had a safe space under the house so I started opening up the hatch, throwing water, throwing blankets, throwing everything down there, getting the dog down there, really panicked, really scared,” Stice-Durkin told KITV. “I’m surprised I didn’t cry but I was definitely in marching order mode so that’s the mama-bear, keeping everybody calm but I’ll probably cry tonight.”

For Aaron, the false alarm felt all too real with tensions sky-high between the United States and North Korea, which conducted over a dozen ballistic missile tests in the past year.

The latest was Nov. 29, when North Korea said it launched a new, nuclear-capable weapon that could allegedly reach the entire continental United States. North Korean state television said the new intercontinental ballistic missile, which it called a Hwasong 15, was “significantly more” powerful than the previous long-range ICBM the country had tested.

“The possibility of a missile being inbound to Hawaii, presumably from North Korea — although no one said that — that possibility did not seem that ridiculous at the moment,” Aaron told NBC news. 

The alert turned out to be false and the result of human error.

For the more than 30 minutes it took before a corrected message was broadcast, the alert caused panic among many around the state.

But even before the corrected message went out, some Hawaii officials were tweeting that it was a false alarm, including Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard at 1:24 p.m. and Sen. Brian Schatz’s

Please retweet https://t.co/ry6FPmUQNS

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 13, 2018

retweet of a post from the state’s emergency management system at 1:25 p.m. that announced, “No missile threat to Hawaii.”

HAWAII – THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. THE ALERT WAS SENT OUT INADVERENTLY. I HAVE SPOKEN TO HAWAII OFFICIALS AND CONFIRMED THERE IS NO THREAT. pic.twitter.com/hwRGct2aTa

— Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiPress) January 13, 2018

Schatz later wrote on Twitter that “the whole state was terrified.

AGAIN FALSE ALARM. What happened today is totally inexcusable. The whole state was terrified. There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process.

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) January 13, 2018

Scott Saiki said in a statement.

“This system we have been told to rely upon failed and failed miserably today,” Saiki said. “I am deeply troubled by this misstep that could have had dire consequences.”

He added, “Apparently, the wrong button was pushed and it took over 30 minutes for a correction to be announced. Parents and children panicked during those 30 minutes.”

The emergency alert was sent to people’s mobile phones in Hawaii starting at about 8:07 a.m. local time with the startling words all in caps, “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

A mistaken alert went out Saturday warning of a missile headed toward Hawaii, Jan. 13, 2018.

Shortly after, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command, Dave Benham, told ABC News in a statement that no ballistic missile threat to Hawaii was detected.

“Earlier message was sent in error. State of Hawaii will send out a correction message as soon as possible,” Benham said.

Correction messages were later sent out to mobile phones in Hawaii and were broadcast on television via a scrolling red banner that read in part, “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii.”

Many people did not receive a corrected alert on their phones until 8:45 a.m., 38 minutes after the warning of the incoming missile.

Messages correcting false emergency alert in Hawaii were broadcast on TV as well as sent to cellphones, Jan. 13, 2018.more +
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission meanwhile tweeted that the FCC is launching an investigation into how the false emergency alert was sent out.

The @FCC is launching a full investigation into the false emergency alert that was sent to residents of Hawaii.

— Ajit Pai (@AjitPaiFCC) January 13, 2018

Gov. David Ige said at a press conference Saturday afternoon that the error happened during a routine procedure that occurs as workers are changing shifts.

“An error was made in emergency management which allowed this false alarm to be sent,” Ige said. “It was a procedure that occurs at the change of shift, enabling [us] to make sure that the system is working, and an employee pushed the wrong button.”

The governor added that in order to prevent the error from occurring agaign the state will change its procedures by having more than one person involved in pushing the wrong button.