‘Sick’ at sending that false alert
Fired Hawaii worker is remorseful, but says he felt “100% sure” the missile attack was real.
HONOLULU — A former Hawaii state worker who sent a false missile alert last month says he’s devastated about causing panic but was “100% sure” at the time that the attack was real.
The man, who is in his 50s, spoke to reporters on condition that he not be identified because he has received threats.
He says a call that came in on Jan. 13 didn’t sound like a drill. However, state officials say other workers clearly heard the word “exercise” repeated several times.
“Immediately afterward, we find out it was a drill, and I was devastated. I still feel very badly about it,” he said Friday. “I felt sick afterward. It was like a body blow.”
He’s had difficulty eating and sleeping since, he said.
The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency fired him after the incident.
The man’s superiors said they had known for years that he had problems performing his job. He had mistakenly believed tsunami and fire drills were actual events, and colleagues were not comfortable working with him, the state said.
His supervisors said they counseled him but kept him for a decade in a job that had to be renewed each year.
The ex-worker said he wasn’t aware of any performance problems.
While starting a shift on Jan. 13 at the emergency operations center in a bunker in Honolulu’s Diamond Head crater, the man said, a co-worker took a phone call over the U.S. Pacific Command secure line that he said sounded like a real warning. “Someone picked up the receiver instead of hitting speakerphone so that everyone could hear the message,” he said.
The man said he didn’t hear the beginning of the message that said, “Exercise, exercise, exercise.”
“I heard the part, ‘this is not a drill,’” he said. “I didn’t hear ‘exercise’ at all in the message or from my coworkers.”
Federal and state reports say the agency had a vague checklist for missile alerts, allowing workers to interpret the steps they should follow differently. Managers didn’t require a second person to sign off on alerts before they were sent, and the agency had no procedure for correcting a false warning.
Those details emerged Tuesday in reports from investigations into how the agency mistakenly blasted cellphones and broadcast stations with the missile warning.
It took nearly 40 minutes for the agency to figure out a way to retract the false alert.
“The protocols were not in place. It was a sense of urgency to put it in place as soon as possible. But those protocols were not developed to the point they should have,” retired Brig. Gen. Bruce Oliveira, who wrote the report on Hawaii’s internal investigation, said at a news conference.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi resigned as the reports were released. Officials revealed that the employee who sent the alert was fired Jan. 26. The state did not name him.
The agency’s executive officer, Toby Clairmont, said Wednesday that he had stepped down too because it was clear action would be taken against agency leaders. Another employee was being suspended without pay, officials said.
The incident “shines a light” on the state system’s failures, the fired man said, adding that he believes the federal government should handle such alerts.
Testing of the alert system began in November, and protocols were constantly changing, he said. “As far as our level of training was concerned, I think it was inadequate,” he said.
Hawaii state Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Charles Anthony declined to comment on what the former worker said.