The false warning message was sent to people’s mobile devices, and was also broadcast on television and radio stations.<\/p>\n
The phone message notification, all in capital letters, went out at 08:07 (18:07 GMT).<\/p>\n
It was corrected by email 18 minutes later\u00a0but there was no follow-up mobile text for 38 minutes, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports.<\/p>\n
Governor Ige said human error during one of the thrice-daily shift changes at the state’s Emergency Management Agency (EMA) was to blame for the false alert.<\/p>\n
“It was a procedure that occurs at the change of shift where they go through to make sure that the system, that it’s working. And an employee pushed the wrong button,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“It was an inadvertent mistake,” said EMA administrator Vern Miyagi. “The change of shift is about three people. That should have been caught… it should not have happened.”<\/p>\n
Television and radio broadcasts across the state were interrupted with a recorded emergency message instructing people to stay indoors.<\/p>\n
“If you are outdoors seek immediate shelter in a building. Remain indoors well away from windows. If you are driving pull safely to the side of the road and seek shelter in a building while laying on the floor. We’ll announce when the threat has ended. This is not a drill!”<\/p>\n
How did Hawaiians react?<\/strong><\/p>\n People in the US state have been sharing stories of momentary frenzy and the panic-stricken messages they exchanged with loved ones after they received the alert.<\/p>\n Videos posted on social media appeared to show students at the University of Hawaii running for shelter after the missile threat was issued.<\/p>\n Matt Lopresti, a member of the Hawaiian House of Representatives, was at home when he received the alert on his mobile phone.<\/p>\n He described how he and his family had sought shelter in a bath tub.<\/p>\n “We got our children, grabbed our emergency supplies, put them in our most enclosed room in our house which is our bathroom,” he told local broadcaster KGMB.<\/p>\n “We put them in the bath tub, said our prayers, tried to find out what the hell was going on because we didn’t hear any alarms, any of the sirens.<\/p>\n “There’s not much else you can do in that situation. You know, we did what we could… and I am very angry right now because it shouldn’t be this easy to make such a big mistake.”<\/p>\n Golfers were also thrown into alarm\u00a0ahead of the US PGA Hawaii Open in Honolulu, with US player Talor Gooch tweeting that “birdies didn’t seem too important for a few minutes”.<\/p>\n What happened <\/strong>with the button?<\/strong><\/p>\n After the US military confirmed no missile threat had been detected, and the alert had been released in error, Governor Ige explained:<\/p>\n “It was a procedure that occurs at the change of shift which they go through to make sure that the system is working, and an employee pushed the wrong button.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An incoming missile alert plunged residents of Hawaii into panic on Saturday morning before it was declared a false alarm. Mobile phone users received a message saying: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.” State Governor David Ige apologised and said it was caused by an employee pressing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":391410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[16130,594],"class_list":["post-391405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-hawaii","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=391405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/391410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=391405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=391405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=391405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/13612\/production\/_99587397_reuterssign.jpg\")
<\/span><\/figure>\n