Hawaii civil defense employee mistook drill for actual missile attack

The Hawaii civil defense employee who issued the false missile alarm that stirred panic across the state last month mistook an alert drill for an actual attack, confused by conflicting messages used in the simulation, investigators said on Tuesday.

The employee has since been fired, and the top two civilian officials at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HEMA), administrator Vern Miyagi and executive officer Toby Clairmont, resigned in a shakeup stemming from the scare, it was announced at a news conference in Honolulu.

There were also proceedings to suspend without pay a mid-level agency manager who played a major role in devising the procedures and checklists for HEMA’s missile alerts and drills, said Bruce Oliveira, a retired National Guard general who led a review of the Jan. 13 mishap.

The investigation found the system for activating a missile alert and conducting emergency drills was deeply flawed, lacking sufficient clarity, fail-safe controls or even a pre-programmed way of issuing a false alarm notice to the public.

Those shortcomings came into play the day a supervisor decided to initiate a drill during a weekend shift change, leading a warning system officer to errantly transmit a live missile alert to mobile phones and broadcast stations statewide.

The message, issued amid heightened tension over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, stated: “EMERGENCY ALERT BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

It went uncorrected for 38 minutes and triggered hysteria and confusion across the Pacific island state.

Oliveira said the employee who activated the false alarm was a 10-year veteran of HEMA with a history of job performance issues, including twice confusing drills with real emergencies.

This article has been posted by a News Hour Correspondent. For queries, please contact through [email protected]
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