Free Republic

This story was supposed to be over, except for the ongoing review of how the mistake was made and what can be done to prevent it in the future. When that doomsday alert hit every phone in Hawaii earlier this month, letting everyone know that the actual “fire and fury” was incoming and they probably had minutes to live, everybody was praying it was a mistake. Thank God, it actually did turn out to be a mistake. Or did it? We were never told the identity of the mysterious Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) employee who supposedly “pushed the wrong...

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii's emergency management leader has resigned and a state employee who sent an alert falsely warning of an incoming ballistic missile has been fired, officials said Tuesday, weeks after the mistake caused widespread panic. Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi stepped down Tuesday, state Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Joe Logan said. A second agency worker quit before disciplinary action was taken and another was being suspended without pay, Logan said in announcing results of an internal investigation.

January 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The ballistic missile alert last weekend that had countless people in Hawaii panicked for roughly one half-hour with the thought that death was imminent did something the Catholic Church, on the whole, has struggled to do of late – it got people into Mass and Confession. Reports of soul searching, prayer, and a return to the Sacrament of Penance surfaced after the missile scare. “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” was the alert sent throughout the Pacific island state on Saturday morning, January 13. Residents and visitors...

Shortly after 8 a.m. local time Saturday, an employee at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency settled in at the start of his shift. Among his duties that day was to initiate an internal test of the emergency missile warning system: essentially, to practice sending an emergency alert to the public without actually sending it to the public. It was a drill the agency had started with some regularity last November — around the time Hawaii reinstated its Cold War-era nuclear warning sirens amid growing fears of an attack by North Korea — and so, while the tests were not yet...