A new procedure was instituted Saturday requiring two people to sign off before any such alert is sent.Īt no time, officials said, was there any indication that a nuclear attack had been launched on the United States. As a result, they said a “cancellation template” would be created to make it easier to fix mistaken alerts. State officials said that the agency and the governor began posting notices on Facebook and Twitter announcing the mistake, but that a flaw in the alert system delayed sending out a cellphone correction.

“Someone clicked the wrong thing on the computer,” he said. The mistake occurred during a shift-change drill that takes place three times a day at the emergency command post, according to Richard Rapoza, a spokesman for the agency. Officials said the alert was the result of human error and not the work of hackers or a foreign government. I am sorry for that pain and confusion that anyone might have experienced.” “Many in our community were deeply affected by this.

“What happened today was totally unacceptable,” said Gov. State officials and residents of a normally tranquil part of the Pacific, as well as tourists swept up in the panic, immediately expressed outrage. The alert, sent by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, was revoked 38 minutes after it was issued, prompting confusion over why it was released - and why it took so long to rescind.

An early-morning emergency alert mistakenly warning of an incoming ballistic missile attack was dispatched to cellphones across Hawaii on Saturday, setting off widespread panic in a state that was already on edge because of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea.

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