HONOLULU — A message warning Hawaii residents to seek shelter due to the imminent threat of a ballistic missile on Saturday morning was a false alarm, officials said.
"BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL," read the alert to people's phones, which immediately caused a panic among residents and on social media.
The message also blared across local television stations.
However, a spokesperson for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, told BuzzFeed News the incident was a false alarm.
"There is no missile threat," Lt. Cmdr. Joe Nawrocki told BuzzFeed News. "We're trying to figure out where this came from or how this started. There is absolutely no incoming ballistic missile threat to Hawaii right now."
"My phone's been blowing up," he added.
Nawrocki referred requests for information to Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency, where a representative also told BuzzFeed News the message was a false alarm.
"We're in a process of sending another message to cancel the initial message. It was part of a drill that was going on," the spokesperson said.
The agency later tweeted, "NO missile threat to Hawaii."
US Pacific Command spokesperson Cmdr. David Benham later told reporters in a statement, "USPACOM has detected no ballistic missile threat to Hawaii. Earlier message was sent in error."
Some 40 minutes after the original message was sent, a second alert was pushed to people's phones, declaring a false alarm.
The incorrect alert was sent as part of a drill by the state's Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for emergency alerts and is a subset of the Department of Defense.
Richard Rapoza, an EMA public information officer, said the agency was still "trying to find where the error occurred" but believed it was a technical issue, and not a result of hacking.
"We don’t have any real clear answers," he told BuzzFeed News. "We’re working on a number of hypotheses."
Trump was at his Florida golf course when the initial alert hit phones in Hawaii around 8:09 a.m. Hawaii time. Trump left about 29 minutes after it was sent, and got to his Mar-a-Lago resort at about 8:49 a.m. Hawaii time.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters later issued a statement, saying, "The President has been briefed on the state of Hawaii's emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise."
Regular staff at the state's EMA operations center, located at its Diamond Head Crater headquarters, were running a drill when the alert was sent. Rapoza said testing the broadcast system — sending an emergency alert — is not part of a standard drill.
BuzzFeed News asked why the message included the words "this is not a drill," if in fact the message was sent as part of a drill. "That alert is not supposed to go out as part of the drill," said Rapoza.
"We don’t know why the alert went out as part of the test. It’s a regular test we do and normally the alert does not go out as part of that test. But this time it did so we’re trying to find out what went wrong and resolve that," said Rapoza.
The agency currently believes it was a technical or coding issue that may have caused the incorrect message.
"Right now it appears to be a technical issue. But we can’t be sure. We’re working right now on the assumption it was a technical issue," he said, noting the agency expected to have more information on what happened later Saturday.
But he did clarify that there was no suspicion and "no evidence of any kind" of government systems being hacked.
"We have absolutely no indication it was any kind of hacking; that is not something we believe," he said.
Eugene Tanner / AFP / Getty Images
Honolulu on Saturday morning.
Gov. David Ige told reporters an emergency management official accidentally pushed a wrong button.
"It was a procedure that occurs at the change of shift where they go through to make sure that the system is working, and an employee pushed the wrong button," he said.
Hawaii EMA Administrator Vern T. Miyagi said he took responsibility for the incident.
"We'll take action to make sure this won't happen again," Miyagi said.
The Federal Communications Commission is investigating the alert, Chair Ajit Pai said in a tweet. "The @FCC is launching a full investigation into the false emergency alert that was sent to residents of Hawaii," Pai posted.
The state's two Democratic senators both called for an investigation into Saturday's mishap.
"What happened today is totally inexcusable," tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz. "The whole state was terrified. There needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process."
Schatz said the false alarm was a result of human error.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, the state's junior senator, wrote: "At a time of heightened tensions, we need to make sure all information released to the community is accurate. We need to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again."
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was among the first to inform residents the message was a false alarm, tweeting out information.
Gabbard told CNN the message was sent to every single person in Hawaii.
"People got this message on their phones and they thought,15 minutes, we’ve got 15 minutes before me and my family could be dead," she said.
Gabbard, a Democrat, blamed Trump for what she said was a failure to take the threat of North Korea seriously.
"The reality is that every American needs to understand that if you had gone through what the people of Hawaii just went through, what my family and so many families in Hawaii just went through, you would be angry just like I am," she said.
Michelle Broder Van Dyke reported from Honolulu. David Mack and Amber Jamieson reported from New York City. Additional reporting by Julia Reinstein and Hayes Brown.
A False Alarm "Missile Threat" Warning Got Sent To Everyone In Hawaii
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Eugene Tanner / AFP / Getty Images
Honolulu on Saturday morning.
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