{"id":29710,"date":"2018-01-14T12:39:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-14T17:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29710"},"modified":"2018-01-14T12:39:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-14T17:39:57","slug":"missile-false-alarm-in-hawaii-how-wrong-buttons-can-wreak-havoc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29710","title":{"rendered":"Missile False Alarm in Hawaii: How Wrong Buttons Can Wreak Havoc"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mobile phone users in Hawaii saw this message.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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Missile False Alarm in Hawaii: How Wrong Buttons Can Wreak Havoc<\/a><\/h3>\n
Should the survival of humanity hinge on bureaucratic protocols?<\/strong><\/div>\n
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On Saturday at 8:05 am, residents of Hawaii were terrified by a text message that said a missile was heading their way, and they should \u201cseek shelter immediately.\u201d Helpfully, the message also said,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthis is not a drill.\u201d And it wasn\u2019t \u2013\u00a0it was merely a stomach-clenching error.<\/p>\n

A notable thing about Saturday\u2019s mistake is how human it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten minutes after it was sent, it was canceled, and updates were broadcast over social media saying so. However, it wasn\u2019t until 8:45 that a follow-up text saying it had been a mistake was sent out. In the meantime, according to The New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and other reports, more than a few families huddled completely terrified, assuming that they were about to die \u2013\u00a0or at least that there was nothing to be done about it if they were.<\/p>\n

An Infamous Error<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hawaii, which is 2,400 miles from California and 4,600 miles from North Korea, is a lot closer to a potentially hot sequel to the Cold War than the rest of us and is understandably tenser, even without this kind of morning. Last year, they started\u00a0monthly bomb drills<\/a>\u00a0thanks to the ongoing battle between President Trump and Kim Jong-Un.<\/p>\n

The error was the fault of a still unnamed employee of Hawaii\u2019s state version of FEMA \u2013\u00a0The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. According to the BBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cState Governor David Ige apologised and said it was caused by an employee pressing the wrong button.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And though this might end up a valuable push towards fixing a rickety system that managed to incorrectly inform people that they should duck and cover, but not officially say \u201chang on, not really\u201d for more than half an hour, it is a truly unforgivable error.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mobile phone users in Hawaii saw this message. Missile False Alarm in Hawaii: How Wrong Buttons Can Wreak Havoc Should the survival of humanity hinge on bureaucratic protocols? On Saturday at 8:05 am, residents of Hawaii were terrified by a text message that said a missile was heading their way, and they should \u201cseek shelter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15994,149,14991,8838,17022,17916,2583,10739,862],"class_list":["post-29710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-ballistic-missile","tag-cold-war","tag-foundation-for-economic-education","tag-hawaii","tag-lucy-steigerwald","tag-missile","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-policy","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29711,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29710\/revisions\/29711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}