Hawaii Officials Clarify There’s No Missile Threat After Emergency Alert Starts a Panic (UPDATED)
People in Hawaii started to panic after receiving a pretty alarming alert on their phones:
A *lot* of people are tweeting about receiving an "inbound missile" alert in Hawaii pic.twitter.com/RCpt0ajmkW
— Alastair Reid (@ajreid) January 13, 2018
Just received this alert in Hawaii pic.twitter.com/VCHwRdG9Bc
— Amanda Golden (@amandawgolden) January 13, 2018
Hawaii officials quickly clarified that this is a false alarm:
NO missile threat to Hawaii.
— Hawaii EMA (@Hawaii_EMA) 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
Man at Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency told me: "We're in a process of sending another message to cancel the initial message. It was part of a drill that was going on." https://t.co/2eQ30UQY9e
— Amber Jamieson (@ambiej) January 13, 2018
The text, however, as you can see above, says it’s not a drill.
UPDATE –– 2:09 pm ET: You can see the alarming footage from when the alert interrupted Hawaiian TV earlier:
The moment the EAS alert interrupted Hawaiian TV is terrifying pic.twitter.com/pVwpCBeRgD
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 13, 2018
UPDATE –– 3:04 pm ET: While Gabbard and the EMA were quick to tweet that it was a false alarm, the actual emergency alert follow-up took a stunning 38 minutes to get sent out (Editor’s note: the word “Quickly” has been removed from the headline):
A second emergency alert goes out 38 minutes after the first alert saying it was a false alarm pic.twitter.com/iJjKEabZLz
— Amanda Golden (@amandawgolden) January 13, 2018
[image via screengrab]
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