Hawaii Panics After Alert About Incoming Missile Is Sent in Error

DaSleeper

Trolling Hypocrites
May 27, 2007
33,676
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Northern Ontario,
There isn,t just one key or button it has to be sequential engagement of multiples I,m thinking. I would be very surprised if it weren,t. You wouldn,t permit that kind of potential chaos and the ensueing lawsuits I don,t think. Perhaps later this week we,ll hear just that with some panic injured civilians.
They do not have that system yet
“It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the changeover of a shift,” he said, “and an employee pushed the wrong button.”

source: https://www.voanews.com/a/hawaii-officials-missile-alert-was-mistake/4206507.html
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia

The incident comes just four days after a public warning was issued to residents in Hawaii to “seek immediate shelter” from an alleged incoming ballistic missile which had been launched.
That alert was issued in error by the Hawaii Civil Defense, which apologized profusely and sparked debate online about US President Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding his country’s nuclear capabilities and the threat posed by the North Korean regime.


DB (isn,t Hawaii close to Japan in space and time)
 

Corduroy

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Feb 9, 2011
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At the time of the Hawaii debacle I heard conspiracies that it was done on purpose to test the system and the public's response. Now that the NJK did the same thing for all of Japan.... I'm gonna need a tinfoil hat. That's super suspicious.
 

B00Mer

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Sep 6, 2008
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I guess there wouldn't have been such a panic if Trump had not payed it fast and loose with Kim Jong Ing.. those 2 batshit leaders Kim & Trump who knows if a nuclear war isn't just around the corner.

 
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Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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I think I read that there are four or five levels of command and verification before any such warning button would have been ordered pushed.

Wall, thar's the "One Mississippi", then the "Two Mississippi" followed by the "Three Mississippi","Four & Five Mississippi" ... then ya push the button.
 

spaminator

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'This is not a drill': Hawaii missile alert employee had problems but kept job
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
January 30, 2018
Updated:
January 30, 2018 9:16 PM EST
HONOLULU — Hawaii’s emergency management leader has resigned and a state employee who sent an alert falsely warning of an incoming ballistic missile has been fired, officials said Tuesday, weeks after the mistake caused widespread panic.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi stepped down Tuesday, state Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Joe Logan said. A second agency worker quit before disciplinary action was taken and another was being suspended without pay, Logan said in announcing results of an internal investigation.
The fallout came the same day the Federal Communications Commission revealed that the worker who pushed out the alert thought an actual attack was imminent. It was the first indication the Jan. 13 alert was purposely sent, adding another level of confusion to the misstep that left residents and tourists believing their lives were about to end.
The state emergency agency worker believed the attack was real because of a mistake in how the drill was initiated during a shift change, the FCC said in a report. The worker said he didn’t hear the word “exercise” repeated six times even though others clearly heard it.
There was no requirement to double-check with a colleague or get a supervisor’s approval before sending the blast to cellphones, TV and radio stations statewide, the agency said.
“There were no procedures in place to prevent a single person from mistakenly sending a missile alert” in Hawaii, said James Wiley, a cybersecurity and communications reliability staffer at the FCC.
The worker, who was fired Friday and whose name has not been revealed, has confused real-life events and drills in the past, according to the state’s report on its internal investigation. Retired Brig. Gen. Bruce Oliveira, who wrote the report, said the employee mistakenly believed drills for tsunami and fire warnings were actual events.
His poor performance had been documented for years, and colleagues say they were not comfortable working with him in any role. His supervisors counselled him but kept him in his job. He had worked for the agency for over 10 years in a position that had to be renewed annually.
People in Honolulu Shocked by Missile Alert 1:26
Earlier this month, the employee heard a recorded message that began by saying “exercise, exercise, exercise” — the script for a drill, the FCC said. Then the recording used language that is typically used for a real threat, not a drill: “This is not a drill.” The recording ended by saying “exercise, exercise, exercise.”
Once the employee sent the false alert, he was directed to send a cancel message but instead “just sat there and didn’t respond,” the state report said. Later, another employee took over the computer and sent the correction because the worker “seemed confused.”
Compounding the issues with the alert was that the agency lacked any preparation in how to correct the false warning. The FCC, which regulates the nation’s airwaves and sets standards for such emergency alerts, criticized the state’s delay in correcting it.
In addition, software at Hawaii’s emergency agency used the same prompts for both test and actual alerts, and it generally used prepared text that made it easy for a staffer to click through the alerting process without focusing enough on the text of the warning that would be sent.
The FCC said the state Emergency Management Agency has already taken steps to try to avoid a repeat of the false alert, requiring more supervision of drills and alert and test-alert transmissions. It has created a correction template for false alerts and has stopped ballistic missile defence drills until its own investigation is done.
Gov. David Ige has asked the Hawaii National Guard’s deputy commander to prepare another report on what needs to be changed in the emergency management system overall. The first version of that report is due in two weeks, with a final version due in six weeks.
Ige was asked why Hawaii didn’t reveal details earlier about the worker who sent the alert, and he said it would have been irresponsible to release statements before the investigation was complete.
‘This is not a drill’: Hawaii missile alert employee had problems but kept job | Toronto Sun
 

spaminator

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'I JUST FEEL BAD': Hawaii man says he's devastated about sending missile alert
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
February 2, 2018
Updated:
February 2, 2018 10:12 PM EST
This Jan. 13, 2018 file smartphone screen capture shows a false incoming ballistic missile emergency alert sent from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency system.Caleb Jones / AP Photo
HONOLULU — A former Hawaii state worker who sent a false missile alert last month said Friday he’s devastated about causing panic but was “100 per cent sure” at the time that the attack was real.
The man in his 50s spoke to reporters on the condition that he not be identified because he fears for his safety after receiving threats.
He says an on-duty call that came in on Jan. 13 didn’t sound like a drill. However, state officials say other workers clearly heard the word “exercise” repeated several times.
Honolulu attorney Michael Green, right, sits with his client, the former Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee who sent a false missile alert to residents and visitors in Hawaii, left, during an interview with reporters, Friday, Feb. 2, 2018 in Honolulu. (Jennifer Sinco Kelleher/AP Photo)
“Immediately afterward, we find out it was a drill and I was devastated. I still feel very badly about it,” he said. “I felt sick afterward. It was like a body blow.”
He’s had difficulty eating and sleeping since, he said: “It’s been hell for me the last couple weeks.”
The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency fired him after the incident.
The man’s superiors said they knew for years that he had problems performing his job. The worker had mistakenly believed drills for tsunami and fire warnings were actual events, and colleagues were not comfortable working with him, the state said.
His supervisors counselled him but kept him for a decade in a position that had to be renewed each year.
The ex-worker disputed that, saying he wasn’t aware of any performance problems.
Hawaii missile alert employee had problems but kept job
Hawaii missile alert employee not co-operating in probe: Investigators
While starting a Saturday shift at the emergency operations centre in a former bunker in Honolulu’s Diamond Head crater on Jan. 13, the man said, a co-worker took a phone call over the U.S. Pacific Command secure line that sounded like a real warning, he said.
“When the phone call came in, someone picked up the receiver instead of hitting speaker phone so that everyone could hear the message,” he said.
The man said he didn’t hear the beginning of the message that said, “exercise, exercise, exercise.”
“I heard the part, ’this is not a drill,”’ he said. “I didn’t hear exercise at all in the message or from my co-workers.”
Federal and state reports say the agency had a vague checklist for missile alerts, allowing workers to interpret the steps they should follow differently. Managers didn’t require a second person to sign off on alerts before they were sent, and the agency lacked any preparation on how to correct a false warning.
Those details emerged Tuesday in reports on investigations about how the agency mistakenly blasted cellphones and broadcast stations with the missile warning.
It took nearly 40 minutes for the agency to figure out a way to retract the false alert on the same platforms it was sent to.
“The protocols were not in place. It was a sense of urgency to put it in place as soon as possible. But those protocols were not developed to the point they should have,” retired Brig. Gen. Bruce Oliveira, who wrote the report on Hawaii’s internal investigation, said at a news conference.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi resigned as the reports were released. Officials revealed that the employee who sent the alert was fired Jan. 26. The state did not name him.
The agency’s executive officer, Toby Clairmont, said Wednesday that he stepped down because it was clear action would be taken against agency leaders after the alert.
Another employee was being suspended without pay, officials said.
The incident “shines a light” on the state’s system failures, the man who sent the alert said, adding that he believes the federal government should handle such alerts.
Testing of the alert system began in November and protocols were constantly changing, he said. “As far as our level of training was concerned, I think it was inadequate,” he said.
Hawaii state Department of Defence spokesman Lt. Col. Charles Anthony declined to comment on what the former worker said.
Officials said the man refused to co-operate with state or federal investigations beyond providing a written statement. He wasn’t trying to impede any investigations, he said: “There really wasn’t anything else to say.”
‘I JUST FEEL BAD’: Hawaii man says he’s devastated about sending missile alert | Toronto Sun
 

spaminator

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Not again! AccuWeather app false tsunami warning makes waves on U.S. East Coast
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
February 6, 2018
Updated:
February 6, 2018 11:02 PM EST
Some people on the East Coast got a push alert on their phones Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018, about a tsunami warning, but the National Weather Service says it was just a test. Meteorologist Hendricus Lulofs said there was a glitch Tuesday during a routine test.Jeremy DaRos / AP
By Michael Rubinkam, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A private forecasting company took what was intended to be a routine National Weather Service test message and sent it to subscribers’ phones as an official tsunami warning Tuesday morning, the latest in a spate of false alarms since last month.
AccuWeather blamed the National Weather Service for the false alarm, saying the government weather agency “miscoded” a test message as a real warning. The weather service rejected the claim. The back-and-forth only added to the confusion about why and how AccuWeather customers throughout the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean wound up with a tsunami warning that wasn’t real.
Jeremy DaRos, of Portland, Maine, said the alert made him “jump” because he lives a stone’s throw from the water and was aware of recent spate of small earthquakes that made the alert seem plausible.
“Looking out the window and seeing the ocean puts you in a different frame of mind when you get a tsunami warning,” DaRos said. He said he realized it was just a test after clicking on the push notification for details.
The National Tsunami Warning Center sent the routine monthly test message around 8:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday, which AccuWeather then pushed to mobile devices as a real tsunami warning. The Weather Channel said its users also saw the bogus warning on the company’s mobile app and website for about an hour, though it wasn’t sent as a push notification.
The word “TEST” appeared in the header of the government agency’s message, but State College, Pennsylvania-based AccuWeather said it automatically passes along weather service warnings based on a computer scan of codes, with no human input.
“Tsunami warnings are especially time sensitive given the fact that people may have only minutes to react to a tsunami threat,” said Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s vice-president of business services. “As such, we process them with the utmost concern and deliver them promptly and automatically as soon as they’re received by the government.”
AccuWeather said its systems worked as intended.
“AccuWeather was correct in reading the mistaken NWS codes embedded in the warning. The responsibility is on the NWS to properly and consistently code the messages, for only they know if the message is correct or not,” the company said in a statement.
Hours later, weather service spokeswoman Susan Buchanan said the agency’s investigation found the test message was properly coded.
The weather service is “working with private sector companies to determine why some systems did not recognize the coding,” she said in a statement. “Private sector partners perform a valuable service in disseminating warnings to the public. We will continue to work with our partners to prevent this from occurring again.
AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers had warned the weather service about incorrectly coded emergency messages after a similar problem in 2014. Myers, who co-founded AccuWeather, is now President Donald Trump’s pick to head the government agency that oversees the weather service.
Tuesday’s false alert didn’t create nearly as much panic as last month’s bogus ballistic missile warning in Hawaii. The state employee who sent the alert was fired.
Also last month, a malfunction triggered sirens at a North Carolina nuclear power plant.
Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. Associated Press writer David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

http://accuweather.com/en/press/72602282
U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers
Not again! AccuWeather app false tsunami warning makes waves on U.S. East Coast | Toronto Sun

'A LOT OF IGNORANCE': Misleading photo leads to death threats for Hawaii emergency worker
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
February 6, 2018
Updated:
February 6, 2018 9:49 AM EST
In this Feb. 1, 2018 photo, Jeffrey Wong, current operations officer for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, poses for a photo in Honolulu. He filed a police report after seeing threatening comments online from people who confused him with being the agency employee who mistakenly sent a missile alert. He wants to set the record straight that he's not the so-called "button-pusher" and was on a different island when the alert was sent from Honolulu on Jan. 13.Jennifer Sinco Kelleher / AP
HONOLULU — When an erroneous alert was sent out last month telling people in Hawaii that there was an incoming ballistic missile, Jeffrey Wong was an island away from the state’s emergency management agency office where he works as an operations officer.
Wong helped gather hundreds of panicked guests at his hotel on the island of Kauai to seek shelter in a restaurant until he confirmed the alert was a mistake.
Then an Associated Press photograph circulated picturing Wong months earlier at the agency’s Honolulu operations centre on Oahu island — and people mistakenly thought Wong was the “button-pusher” who sent out the alert, wrongly accusing him in online comments of causing widespread panic and confusion.
Wong told The Associated Press last week he quickly learned how cruel the internet can be: “A lot of anger, a lot of ignorance came out as a result of that.”
He added: “It’s very hurtful to be wrongly accused, wrongly marked as an individual that’s responsible for actions that affected, in a negative way, a lot of people within the state of Hawaii and possibly around the world.”
In this July 21, 2017 file photo, Jeffrey Wong, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s operations officer, shows computer screens monitoring hazards at the agency’s headquarters in Honolulu. The photo originally accompanied an Associated Press story in July about Hawaii preparing for a missile threat from North Korea. Some online news organizations used the AP photo in their coverage of the Jan. 13, 2018 false missile alert in Hawaii, leading some people to believe Wong was the person who sent the false alert. The AP did not use the image in coverage of the false alert. Wong says he has received threats and harassment because of the use of the image online.
Wong said he wanted to set the record straight so the public knows he didn’t send out the alert. The employee who did has been fired. That man, who spoke to reporters separately on the condition that his name not be revealed, said he was devastated for causing panic but believed at it was a real attack at the time.
‘I JUST FEEL BAD’: Hawaii man says he’s devastated about sending missile alert
‘This is not a drill’: Hawaii missile alert employee had problems but kept job
Hawaii missile alert employee not co-operating in probe: Investigators
Hawaii missile-alert mistake feeds doubts about system
SOMEONE PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON: Hawaii officials mistakenly warn of inbound missile
Wong, who oversees day-to-day operations at the agency, said he neither hired the other man nor did the man report directly to him. He said the former employee’s supervisor does report to him.
The AP took the photo in July 2017 to accompany a story about Hawaii preparing for a North Korean missile threat. The news agency did not resend it after the false missile alert, but people found it online and recirculated it on social media.
Some of their comments called for Wong to be shot and water-boarded and there were also racially derogatory comments with some people questioning his loyalty to Hawaii and the U.S., he said.
The photo also included a yellow sticky note in the background that appeared to have a password on it, which people circulating the photo after the false alert pointed out as a reason to criticize the emergency management agency — prompting even more online rage.
Fearing for his safety, Wong took screen-shots and print-outs to Honolulu police and filed a police report four days after the Jan. 13 false alert. Authorities are conducting a first-degree terroristic threatening and harassment investigation, said police spokeswoman Michelle Yu.
While Wong has been overwhelmed by the criticism he has endured, guests at the hotel where he was attending a civil air patrol conference praised his efforts to keep them safe.
“We appreciate your actions greatly and are grateful that you happened to be there and showed yourself to be strong, calm and positive,” Marc Tiar, who was vacationing with his family, wrote in an email to Wong after returning home to Nevada. “We are safe at home in Reno now, but my family and I will never forget that day or the man who made sure we would be as safe as possible.”
‘A LOT OF IGNORANCE’: Misleading photo leads to death threats for Hawaii emergency worker | Toronto Sun
 

Hoid

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I feel badly for the guy who got fired.

He thought he was doing the right thing.
 

spaminator

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Report: Hawaii wasn't ready to handle missile threat alert
Associated Press
More from Associated Press
Published:
February 20, 2018
Updated:
February 20, 2018 5:25 PM EST
This Jan. 13, 2018 file smartphone screen capture shows a false incoming ballistic missile emergency alert sent from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency system.Caleb Jones / AP Photo
HONOLULU — Hawaii’s nuclear missile scare showed that the state began testing alerts before fully developing a plan to address the ballistic missile threat and that a public outreach campaign months earlier wasn’t effective, said a report released Tuesday.
The state Department of Defence, the agency that oversees Hawaii’s emergency management, released the internal review after an alert was sent to cellphones, televisions and radio stations across the state last month.
The notification, which read “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” triggered widespread panic as more than a million residents and visitors feared they were about to face a ballistic missile strike.
Hawaii Official Threatened After False Alert 1:39
Gov. David Ige assigned Brig. Gen. Kenneth Hara, the second in command at the Department of Defence, to conduct a comprehensive review of the agency’s operations.
“The response and recovery sections of the plan were minimally developed,” Hara’s report said. “The plan lacked clear details for sheltering, county co-ordination and protocols for decision to send out all clear or false missile alert messages, e.g., interception, missile impact without effect to Hawaii, etc.”
The public didn’t get adequate directions about what to do, the report said.
An agency employee mistakenly sent the alert to cellphones and broadcast stations across the state during a shift-change drill at the agency on Jan. 13.
Officials later disclosed the employee didn’t think he and his colleagues were participating in a drill and instead believed a real attack was imminent. The state has since fired him.
State officials said the worker, who had been employed at the agency for 11 years, had mistakenly believed two prior drills — for tsunami and fire warnings — were actual events. His supervisors counselled him but kept him for a decade in a position that had to be renewed each year.
In this Jan. 13, 2018, file photo provided by Civil Beat, cars drive past a highway sign that says “MISSILE ALERT ERROR THERE IS NO THREAT” on the H-1 Freeway in Honolulu. (Cory Lum/AP Photo)
The ex-worker disputed that, saying he wasn’t aware of any performance problems. The employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety after receiving death threats, told reporters that he was devastated about causing panic but was “100 per cent sure” at the time that the attack was real.
Some managers didn’t follow proper procedures to deal with unsatisfactory performance, which contributed to the false alert, the report said.
Hara’s report recommends employee development training for supervisors and managers.
The agency’s administrator, Vern Miyagi, resigned on Jan. 30. The agency’s executive officer, Toby Clairmont, resigned down shortly after the incident because it was clear action would be taken against agency leaders, he said.
A fourth employee was suspended without pay.
It took the agency 38 minutes to send a follow-up message to broadcast stations and cellphones notifying people the alert was a mistake, in part because the agency had no prepared message it could send out in the event of a false alarm.
Within hours of the alert, the agency changed protocols to start requiring that two people send an alert. It also made it easier to cancel alerts by preparing a pre-programmed false alarm message.
The report’s recommendations include suspending all activities related to the Ballistic Missile Preparedness Campaign, with the exception of the monthly ballistic missile alert tone siren testing, until a plan is published and the majority of Hawaii’s public know “what to do, where to go, and when to do it.”
It also recommends reviewing the feasibility of reinstituting “fallout shelters.” Hawaii stopped maintaining such shelters after the Cold War ended and funding ran out.
Although spurred by the missile scare, the report provides recommendations about all the hazards the islands face. Because Hawaii relies on nearly all of its goods to be imported, the report recommends improving ports and expanding distribution infrastructure, but notes doing so will be expensive and time-consuming.
Report: Hawaii wasn’t ready to handle missile threat alert | Toronto Sun
 

Danbones

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Sep 23, 2015
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Yup if the US starts any nuclear wars the other folks all have giant bomb shelters, what have you guys got to hide in?