Over the MLK day weekend, Hawaiians started their Saturday morning with a scare of a nuclear missile threat. For thirty-eight minutes, people all over the state waited in fear over a possible nuclear strike, luckily the missile threat was sent accidentally by an employee at the Hawaiian Emergency Management Agency.

So how did this happen exactly? During every shift change, it is routine to test the alert, but the tests do not send it out publicly. Following the mistake the employee has been reassigned and two people must be present for check-off before testing the system at all times now.

Hawaiian governor, David Ige stated in a statewide broadcast after the alert,  “I wish I could say there was a simple reason for why it took so long to get the correction to the false alert out, children going down manholes, stores closing their doors to those seeking shelter and cars driving at high speeds cannot happen again.”

Many people are enraged over over the mix up still, as well as a Japanese radio station, NHK, sent out a fake missile alert on Tuesday, January 16, but sent out a message saying it was fake within minutes unlike in Hawaii.

Source: Washington Post