Download Alarm Korea BETTER
Maria Houchins
By 8:10 a.m. HST, three minutes after the first alert, Hawaii National Guard Adjutant General Arthur "Joe" Logan had contacted U.S. Pacific Command and confirmed there had been no missile launch.[39] At that time, the Honolulu Police Department was notified that the alert had been a false alarm. Officials used the State Warning Point system at 8:13 a.m. to cancel the alert, preventing it from being sent out to any phones that had not already received it, such as those that were switched off or did not have reception.[51] The employee who originally sent out the erroneous notification did not respond when directed to cancel the alert, according to state officials.[41] He later said he felt like he had been dealt a "body blow" upon realizing the supposed attack had been a drill, the Associated Press reported.[49] Another unidentified worker grabbed the employee's computer mouse and canceled the alert when the first employee failed to respond.[50]
The second alert was sent "well after everyone from Hawaii's congressional delegation to the U.S. Pacific Command had assured the world on Twitter that it was a false alarm", Pacific Business News remarked.[56]
Disruptions were reported across the state. Honolulu Civil Beat reported that motorists parked inside the Interstate H-3 tunnel on the island of Oahu for shelter.[62] Hawaii News Now reported that alarms sounded at Aloha Gymfest, an international gymnastics meet in Kailua, sending hundreds of people running for cover.[63][64] Students at the University of Hawaii at Manoa reportedly headed for marked fallout shelters on campus but, finding them locked, ended up taking shelter in nearby classrooms instead.[12] Officials at the Sony Open PGA Tour golf tournament on Oahu ordered an evacuation of the media center, while staff members sought cover in the kitchen and players' locker room.[65] Tourists at Kualoa Ranch in Kaneohe were taken by staff up to Battery Cooper Bunker, a concrete bunker built in the mountains during WW2 as part of former Kualoa Airfield, and told to shelter there.[66][28] Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa later said her husband had been driving on a Honolulu-area freeway and saw cars speeding at up to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) after the alert was sent out.[67] Many Hawaii residents and visitors sought shelter or rushed through emergency preparations where they were.[19][63][68][69] Some discounted the alarm when they realized that they heard no sirens, and that they personally saw no immediate coverage on television or local radio.[58][29] Others were in areas where sirens did go off; in addition, some television stations did broadcast the alert.[70]
The incident also created a strain on Hawaii's telephone system. Civil Defense offices in Hawaii were inundated with calls from frightened citizens asking for advice or more information, the New Zealand Herald reported.[68] Many calls to 911 would not go through.[19][71] Many wireless data services were likewise initially jammed, leaving many unable to access the Internet to confirm whether the alarm was real.[72] Some residents called friends or family members to say goodbye.[58][63][73] Others remained where they were, as with Mark Gardner, who, believing that escape was impossible, recorded a final message to his family in anticipation of the missile striking its target.[74][75]
Fear and panic quickly spread through the locals and tourists of Hawaii. Many Twitter posts and screenshots of text messages shared on social media in the immediate wake of the first alert conveyed confusion, alarm, and fear among those who received the warning.[82] With very little warning and instructions, many people were unsure of what to do. This later became a major criticism of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and is a key issue they are working on to improve, which will ensure that people can receive more accurate information in the case of a real emergency.[83]
Members of Hawaii's congressional delegation also took to Twitter to dispel the false alarm. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard tweeted at 8:19 a.m. HST, about 12 minutes after the initial alert was sent, stating in all capitals that the message was a "false alarm" and that she had confirmed with officials that there was no incoming ballistic missile toward Hawaii.[27] The next day, she told CNN that the incident highlighted the need for President Donald Trump to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to resolve nuclear tensions between the United States and North Korea, and she called for those responsible for the erroneous alert in Hawaii "to be held accountable".[84] Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa, a 2018 candidate for governor, tweeted that the "panic and fear created by this false alarm was very dangerous".[56] In further comments, Hanabusa panned the delay between the two emergency alerts, suggesting it should not have taken 38 minutes for the second message to be sent.[85] Senator Mazie Hirono tweeted that officials "need to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again".[86] In his own tweets immediately after the incident, Senator Brian Schatz repeated that the first alert had been a false alarm. He described the erroneous alert message as "totally inexcusable", adding:[32] "The whole state was terrified. There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process."
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell also tweeted that the message had been a false alarm, saying the message had been sent in error before the second alert was sent out by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.[80]
I know first-hand how today's false alarm affected all of us here in Hawaii, and I am sorry for the pain and confusion it caused. I, too, am extremely upset about this and am doing everything I can do to immediately improve our emergency management systems, procedures and staffing.
This system we have been told to rely upon failed and failed miserably today. I am deeply troubled by this misstep that could have had dire consequences. Measures must be taken to avoid further incidents that caused wholesale alarm and chaos today. Clearly, government agencies are not prepared and lack the capacity to deal with emergency situations. Apparently, the wrong button was pushed and it took over 30 minutes for a correction to be announced. Parents and children panicked during those 30 minutes. The Hawaii House of Representatives will immediately investigate what happened and there be consequences. This cannot happen again.
U.S. Senator Brian Schatz, one of Hawaii's two members of the United States Senate, introduced federal legislation that would prohibit state and local agencies from notifying the public of a missile launch, placing the responsibility on federal authorities to make that determination.[50] In July 2018, Schatz also introduced the Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement (READI) Act, which proposed that a reporting system be established for false alarms, that FEMA establish best practices on use of emergency alerts and preventing dissemination of false alarms, and that State Emergency Communications Committees (SECCs) be required to update their procedures on a periodic basis. The act also proposed user-visible changes to EAS behavior, including requiring that users be prevented from opting out of wireless alerts originating from FEMA, mandating repetition of EAS broadcasts for active FEMA or presidential alerts, and compelling the FCC to investigate the feasibility of delivering emergency alerts via over-the-top streaming media services. The bill passed in the Senate but failed in the House of Representatives.[109][110][111]
Purpose: This study aimed to develop a mobile-based self-management health alarm (MSHA) program for modifying obese children's lifestyle based on the information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model and to test its feasibility.
The alarms followed outrage in Seoul and Tokyo earlier this week after Pyongyang unveiled a plan to launch its first military spy satellite into orbit. The United States also condemned the move as a violation of UN security council resolutions that ban the country from using ballistic technology.
The erroneous alert in Seoul, which generated no visible panic on the streets, is not unprecedented. False alarms have been issued before during times of heightened tensions with North Korea and when the authorities are scrambling to establish information about missile launches in real time.
Officials switched the alarm off at 8:16 a.m. after getting updated information about the missile's trajectory, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a media briefing. Japan's coast guard said the missile had landed by 8:19 a.m.
The potential for unnecessary panic caused by false alarms was demonstrated in the United States in 2018 when a mistaken ballistic missile attack alert that sounded for more than 30 minutes stoked panic in Hawaii as residents and tourists scrambled for cover.
We must act now, or we will reap the whirlwind later. The future is up to us, as CBRN professionals. We must sound the alarm and get down to the serious business of training and preparation. We need to know our own history, study it, dissect it, debate it. We need to relearn what we knew in 1918-1919 and in 1990-91. To do that, we must prove our relevance again, against high levels of skepticism and a reluctance to face up to the real threat.
That has hardly been the reaction of certain segments of the South Korean political left, however, as a number of high-profile politicians and commenters have raised alarm that Tokyo is planning a major diplomatic push toward Pyongyang that will strand Seoul on the outside looking in.
df19127ead