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posted by takyon on Sunday January 14 2018, @09:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the oopsday dept.

A few minutes ago, phones across Hawaii received the above emergency alert about a "ballistic missile threat inbound," but according to state officials it isn't true. US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii's [governor] David Ige and the state's Hawaii Emergency Management Agency all chimed in on Twitter to confirm the alert is false. It took 38 minutes before a second alert reached phones, confirming that the first one was a mistake.

Honolulu police confirmed in a post that "State Warning Point has issued a Missile Alert in ERROR!," while Buzzfeed reporter Amber Jamieson tweets that one EMA employee said it was a part of a drill. US Senator from Hawaii Brian Schatz said the "inexcusable" alert "was a false alarm based on a human error" while the National Weather Service called it a "test message."

The governor said on CNN that "It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the change over of a shift, and an employee pushed the wrong button."

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/13/hawaii-missile-eas/


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:37PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:37PM (#622244) Journal

    I think he was alluding to the general ineffectiveness and ultimate futility of civil defense systems.

    And my take is that those systems will be considerably more effective and less futile than doing nothing in the face of a large-scale nuclear war. Sure, it's not going to help anyone at ground zero of an atomic bomb, but not everyone lives there.

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