MISSILE ALARM MAYHEM

A FALSE alarm that warned of a ballistic missile headed for Hawaii sent the islands into a panic yesterday, with people abandoning cars on a highway and preparing to flee their homes until officials said the mobile phone alert was a mistake.

Hawaiian officials apologized repeatedly and said the alert was sent when someone hit the wrong button during a shift change. They vowed it would never happen again.

“We made a mistake,” Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi said.

For nearly 40 minutes, it seemed like the world was about to end in Hawaii, an island paradise already jittery over the threat of nucleartipped missiles from North Korea.

The emergency alert, which was sent to phones statewide just before 8:10 a.m., read: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

On the H-3, a major high- way north of Honolulu, vehicles sat empty after drivers left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert showed up.

Workers at a golf club huddled in a kitchen fearing the worst.

Cherese Carlson, in Honolulu for a class and away from her children, said she called to make sure they were inside after getting the alert.

“I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is it. Something bad’s about to happen and I could die’,” she said.

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted there was no threat about 10 minutes after the initial alert, but that didn’t reach people who aren’t on the social media platform. A revised alert informing of the “false alarm” didn’t reach phones until about 40 minutes later.

The White House said President Donald Trump, at his private club in Florida, was briefed on the false alert.

White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said it “was purely a state exercise.”