In a scenario that has caused widespread outrage, citizens across Hawaii received a startling message on their phones from the Emergency Alert System (EAS) that told them that a ballistic missile was incoming and to seek immediate shelter.
That’s right, all across Hawaii residents believed that they were under attack, presumably from North Korea, with the apparent false alarm not being fixed for upwards of 37 minutes for any resident who wasn’t spending the morning on Twitter.
“The emergency alert claiming a ballistic missile attack was inbound was sent at 8:08AM. It took until 8:45AM to state it was a false alarm. 37 minutes where anyone in Hawaii who doesn’t sit on Twitter dot com all day thought their island might be incinerated. Fire people. Fix it,” noted Twitter user Jerry Dunleavy.
Report: 35 minutes between missile alert and false alarm notification. #Hawaii pic.twitter.com/nf4XD1sed4
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 13, 2018
Breitbart News also reported:
White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters later implied the false warning stemmed from a state, rather than federal, mishap. “The President has been briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise,” he said in a statement
According to the Associated Press (AP), Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Repoza confirmed a false alarm.
“Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Repoza said it was a false alarm and the agency is trying to determine what happened.,” the AP reports.
The message, initially thought authentic, spread quickly on social media, prompting some panic, as Fox News reported Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) estimated over one million Hawaiians received the erroneous alert. The EAS protocol should only be available to government officials.
Interestingly, the location of the false alarm was also particularly worrying when you consider the public threats from North Korea which now, “possesses ballistic missiles reportedly capable of reaching the Aloha State.”
U.S. Pacific Command has detected no ballistic missile threat to #Hawaii. Earlier message was sent in error and was a false alarm. pic.twitter.com/Lvg17VNjiF
— U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (@INDOPACOM) January 13, 2018
HAWAII – THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. pic.twitter.com/DxfTXIDOQs
— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2018
.@TulsiGabbard: "Cell phones all across the state – over a million people in my home state of Hawaii – got this alert." https://t.co/qJu9Jmyz66 pic.twitter.com/OiGXUH3ZlM
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 13, 2018
To recap, over a million people in Hawaii were given a warning that claimed that they were about to be hit by a ballistic missile. One has to wonder how on earth this could possibly happen and whether or not there was actually a missile threat that is now being covered up?
Courtesy of SHTFplan.com
