'Terrifying': False ballistic missile threat sends Hawaii into panic
A false ballistic missile threat alert was sent to all Hawaii cell phones on Saturday morning, sending the state into a panic for more than 30 minutes until emergency officials confirmed the message was a mistake.
While city and military officials took to social media within 15 minutes to quell fears and say the message was sent in error, it took state emergency management — which sent out the message in the first place — nearly 40 minutes to send out a "false alarm" alert to cell phones using the same mechanism that distributed the emergency warning in the first place.
"It's totally unacceptable," said U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. "There was anxiety across the state and it was terrifying. There was a lot of unnecessary pain and anxiety. It's important to have accountability at the state level and the emergency management level in terms of what exactly what went wrong."...