Fake 'Inbound Missile' Alert Sent To Every Cellphone in Hawaii (chicagotribune.com)

"Somebody sent out a false emergency alert to all cell phones in Hawaii saying, 'BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL'," writes Slashdot reader flopwich, adding "Somebody's had better days at work." The Associated Press reports: In a conciliatory news conference later in the day, Hawaii officials apologized for the mistake and vowed to ensure it will never happen again. Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi said the error happened when someone hit the wrong button. "We made a mistake," said Miyagi. For nearly 40 minutes, it seemed like the world was about to end in Hawaii, an island paradise already jittery over the threat of nuclear-tipped missiles from North Korea...

On the H-3, a major highway north of Honolulu, vehicles sat empty after drivers left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert showed up, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. Workers at a golf club huddled in a kitchen fearing the worst... The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted there was no threat about 10 minutes after the initial alert, but that didn't reach people who aren't on the social media platform. A revised alert informing of the "false alarm" didn't reach cellphones until 38 minutes later, according to the time stamp on images people shared on social media.

Comments

Brown Pants

[jwhyche]

Bring me my Brown Pants!!

Re:Brown Pants

[93 Escort Wagon]

From Red Dwarf:

Kryten: "I suggest we go to red alert."
Cat: "Forget red alert. I say we go straight to brown alert!"
Kryten: "But sir, we don't have brown alert."
Cat: "You won't be saying that in a minute...and don't say I didn't alert you!"

Why did it take 40 minutes to correct?

[93 Escort Wagon]

This message ostensibly was sent to every cell phone in Hawaii - didn't the guy who "pushed the wrong button" get the alert as well?

And seriously - their first thought when sending out a correction was a Tweet? Don't they have the ability to send an "all clear" over the same channel they sent the "LOOK OUT YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!!" message?

Re:Why did it take 40 minutes to correct?

[Jeremi]

Don't they have the ability to send an "all clear" over the same channel they sent the "LOOK OUT YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!!" message?

No, apparently they do not:

"[Emergency alerts] aren't like text messages, where a sender can dash off a quick 'sorry my bad' if they mistype. IPAWS notices have a specific format, which must be composed formally and in advance. Audio files for broadcast notices must be recorded or generated and uploaded. Often, this has to be done by special software on special equipment."

https://www.theatlantic.com/te...

Real not fake...mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't a "fake alert" it was a real alert from the real Agency empowered to issue them, that's way worse than a "fake" one.

It was a mistake... That's not the same as being "fake", words matter. Editor's please take some English classes before posting any more.

Re:Real not fake...mistake

[Mal-2]

Agreed, it was a false alert, not a fake one.

I was there...

[bobcardone]

On the 24th floor of a Waikiki Beach condo balcony having coffee when the alert came on my cell. First reaction...WTF?? Second reaction... went straight to the roof. If it's gonna go down, I want to see it (if only for a few milliseconds).

Re: I was there...

[hey!]

The closest Hiroshima survivor was in a cellar only 300 m from ground zero -- which is very close when you consider that the bomb was detonated at 500 m altitude.

Now the device North Korea tested back in September was 10x to 20x more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, but still if a bomb were detonated over Pearl Harbor and you were standing on the beach in Waikiki, you'd almost certainly survive, albeit possibly with thermal burns.

Here's the thing about all that Duck and Cover stuff from the 50s: when you're talking about a handful of bombs distributed over the entire country, diving under a picnic blanket actually makes sense. It wont' help you if you're at ground zero, but if you're five miles away or so it could make the difference between surviving uninjured or requiring hospital treatment. Multiply that by tens of thousands of people, and duck and cover type education is a sensible defensive strategy.

There is, however, a simple counter: attack with a lot more warheads. By the early 70s the Soviets had something like 25,000 of them. An all-out attack would not only result in multiple bombs falling on every city, it would guarantee the collapse of American society and a short and hellish existence for anyone unlucky enough to survive. Fatalism makes sense in that scenario. You might as well enjoy the show for a few hundred milliseconds and then die.

That's not where we are with a North Korean nuclear attack, not by a long shot. North Korea's arsenal is not large enough yet to cause the collapse of American society, or even to kill the majority of people in a city like Honolulu. So maybe we should be dusting off those old civil defense films.

Re:. . . and the other buttons . . . ?

[PPH]

"IMMINENT COVFEFE! STAND BY!"

Re:State Exercise?

[cold fjord]

Scaring the crap out of everyone is considered "a state exercise?"

It was a mistake by state officials, plain and simple.

Hawaii officials give timeline of events surrounding false alarm

Approx. 8.05 a.m.: A routine internal test during a shift change was initiated. This was a test that involved the Emergency Alert System, the Wireless Emergency Alert, but no warning sirens.

8.07 a.m.: A warning was erroneously triggered statewide by an employee at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA).

8.10 a.m.: State Adjutant Maj. Gen. Joe Logan validated with the US Pacific Command that there was no missile launch.

Honolulu Police Department notified of the false alarm by HI-EMA.

8.13 a.m.: State Warning Point issues a cancellation of the Civil Danger Warning Message. This would have prevented the initial alert from being rebroadcast to phones that may not have received it yet. For instance, if a phone was not on at 8.07am, it would not receive the alert later on.