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IPFS News Link • Hawaiian Islands

'He feels really bad': Civil Defense employee who sparked terror in Hawaii by accidentally..

• By KEITH GRIFFITH and JENNIFER SMITH

A Civil Defense employee is set to be retrained after a shocking blunder on Saturday morning, when a mistaken alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile sent thousands fleeing for shelter.

The false alarm was caused by a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee who 'pushed the wrong buttons' during an internal drill timed to coincide with a shift handover at 8.07am. The all-clear phone alert was not sent until 38 minutes later.

Incredibly, officials said the employee who made the mistake wasn't aware of it until mobile phones in the command center began displaying the alert.

'This guy feels bad, right. He's not doing this on purpose - it was a mistake on his part and he feels terrible about it,' said EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi in a press conference Saturday afternoon.


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