Hawaiian Government Says Someone ‘Pushed A Wrong Button’ During A Shift Change

I can’t even imagine the emotional dump the people of Hawaii are experiencing today.

As we told you earlier, they received an absolutely terrifying warning this morning.

THANK GOD, it was a false alarm.

HAWAII – THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. pic.twitter.com/DxfTXIDOQs

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2018

That doesn’t change the fact that there was mass panic across the state. It wasn’t dismissed as a “mistake” right off the bat. It begs the question. How does a “mistake” like that even happen in the first place? They literally had people thinking they were about to get pelted with a ballistic missile. This is a big deal.

According to the Hawaiian government, this “mistake” happened during a shift change. Someone “pushed the wrong button.”

Yes, really.

“There was a shift change, the governor said. And during that shift change––it was a routine shift change––someone accidentally, and this is how he put it, pressed the wrong button. And that sent out the alert, not only to cell phones, but also the emergency alert to television stations as well as the radio stations,” CNN’s Sara Sidner stated.

JUST IN: Hawaii Governor David Ige tells CNN that someone “pushed the wrong button” during an employee shift change, sending out the false alert about an incoming ballistic missile https://t.co/FD1vl6fCzh pic.twitter.com/2zhXLApLcr

— CNN (@CNN) January 13, 2018

A wrong button…

Hawaii Gov. David Ige still wants more answers.

“While I am thankful this morning’s alert was a false alarm, the public must have confidence in our emergency alert system. I am working to get to the bottom of this so we can prevent an error of this type in the future,” Ige said in a statement.

Ige tweeted that he is meeting with “top officials of the State Department of Defense and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to determine what caused this morning’s false alarm and to prevent it from happening again.”

The White House put out a statement to say President Trump has been briefed on the situation.

“The President has been briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise,” said White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters.

The worst thing that should happen when an employee pushes the “wrong” button is a supervisor has to come out and void the sale https://t.co/nBjplxZuOE

— Ike Barinholtz (@ikebarinholtz) January 13, 2018

This is like that, but 100 times worse.

This was a pretty specific message: “this is not a drill” “take immediate action” “a missile may impact on land or sea within minutes.” “Remain indoors well away from windows.” All of that because “somebody pressed the wrong button”?

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) January 13, 2018

That’s what I don’t get.

man, “wrong button pushed during shift change” is really not the explanation you want to hear.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 13, 2018

“An employee pushed the wrong button” according to Governor of Hawaii David Ige

— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 13, 2018

HI Gov tells CNN “It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the change over of a shift and an employee pushed the wrong button,”

— Noah Gray (@NoahGrayCNN) January 13, 2018

How does that even happen?!

why does creating a password require a capital letter, number, special character, and math problem but someone can just accidentally press the wrong button to send ballistic missle alerts

— Manny Fidel (@mannyfidel) January 13, 2018

For real.

"Wrong button pushed during shift change led to false alarm." sez governor. OK – when people change shifts, how do they end up accidentally hitting the button that tells the world they're going to die? maybe MOVE THAT BUTTON FAR AWAY FROM OTHER BUTTONS?

— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) January 13, 2018

Right?! For crying out loud, MOVE THE BUTTONS.