I cannot even imagine receiving such a message. How awful for everyone who received this notification.
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/13/politics/hawaii-missile-threat-false-alarm/index.html
Those poor people. 
How frightening.
Actually, we knew it was a false alarm right away because the civil defense sirens were never sounded.
^^^^^Unfortunately, many people did not know right away.
I hope they look closely at their procedures to make sure this never happens again.
If I were in Hawaii and got that message, I would not be confident that it was a false alarm because the sirens didn’t sound. I probably wouldn’t even know about civil defense sirens. And indeed, reportedly many did believe the message.
Philadelphia based reporter vacationing in Hawaii speaking on CNN " We called our 4 children who are at college at Duke and BYU. Being Millennials none picked up the phone. We texted them telling them where are wills were. "
The “pushed a wrong button” explanation seems a little sketchy to me. It’s really that easy?
The “wrong button” was allegedly the alert that went out. The explanation doesn’t seem sketchy to me. In the fires in the California Bay Area, there were issues with how well people in the evacuation zone were warned. These warning systems are not used often, so I can easily believe they might not be optimally designed. (Yes, they should be optimally designed, but that doesn’t mean they are optimally designed.)
I find it very hard to believe there is only ONE button to push for this kind of alert.
That it took 38 minutes for them to send out a correction alert is also very hard to understand.
Tourists probably don’t know about the civil defense sirens, but all the locals do. The sirens are tested monthly. Also, the television and radio emergency broadcast system was never activated. It is routinely used for all emergencies including hurricanes and flash floods. So it was very apparent to locals that it was a false alarm.
A friend’s D just moved there on her own right after college graduation this summer and my friend posted on FB that her D was terrified and called when she received the alert to see what she should. I will share with my friend the comments about the civil defense sirens. However, personally I would believe a phone alert since the technology for phone alerts and the speed of internet communications has gotten so sophisticated that I’d believe an alert probably before I’d believe a 1950s era civil defense siren to be honest.
I live in HI. Everyone I know took the alert seriously. Target had pallets of cases of water right at the front of the store this morning, a couple of hours after the alarm. S23’s school is a boarding school. They gathered the boarding students and moved them to the designated area. Although the sirens didn’t go off, there was no information that said that the alert wasn’t real. It was terrifying.
Here’s an interview with a state rep about half an hour after the false alarm alert went out. You can hear the fright and terror in his voice. http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/01/13/hawaii-missile-alert-bathtub-praying-matt-lopresti-nr-sot.cnn
No, everyone did not know it was a false alarm right away. My college roommate and her son were bussed to a bunker before they found out. They live on a ranch – doubt there are sirens near their house. She is quite shaken.
According to ABC News they were. They showed a video of the warning crawl across the screen.
We almost went to HI this week but Mr. had crap at work that got in the way.
I would have taken it seriously - especially with you know who doing you know what.
@TomSrOfBoston Hmmm… After the cell phone alert went out, I tuned the tv to all the local stations and didn’t see any emergency broadcast system warnings. A few minutes later, I turned on the radio and they were saying it was a false alarm. Also, for some reason, not everyone received the cell phone alert. My wife did, I didn’t.
Immediately thought of @HImom and messaged her before seeing this thread.
How horrifying. I really can’t imagine.
We have tornado warnings every month. I hear those. When I get a tornado warning on my phone, I immediately head down stairs. Doesn’t occur to me to listen for the sirens.
I can’t speak for those in Hawaii of course.
Wonder what @HImom’s take on this was.