Hawaii Alert Caused by Lack of Safeguards, Confused, Now-Fired Employee
Hawaii’s false missile alert stemmed from lack of safeguards and human error, including a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee who repeatedly confused drills and real alerts, said reports from the Public Safety Bureau at an FCC commissioners' meeting and later Tuesday from Bruce Oliveira, the retired brigadier general investigating for HI-EMA (see 1801250061). That staffer was fired and other employees were disciplined. Members of Congress told us they continue to be concerned, as are FCC members.
“Every state and local government that originates alerts needs to learn from these mistakes,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “Each should ensure that it has adequate safeguards in place to prevent the transmission of false alerts, and each should have a plan in place for how to immediately correct a false alert.” Others on Capitol Hill and elsewhere said similar.
The bureau investigation will continue and result in a final report with recommendations to prevent future incidents and mitigate their effects, attorney-adviser James Wiley told the FCC. Though Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said many of the errors that led to the problem involved portions of the emergency alerting system overseen by Federal Emergency Management Agency rather than the FCC, bureau Chief Lisa Fowlkes said all those involved “need to do their part to address these issues.”
The false alert happened after a HI-EMA supervisor decided to hold a missile alert drill during the shift change between incoming day alerting officers and the outgoing night workers, Wiley said. A miscommunication with the day supervisor led to the day shift being unsupervised when the alert drill began. It was initiated by a speakerphone call simulating a call from Pacific Command, Wiley said, The body of the call was preceded and ended by a voice saying “exercise, exercise, exercise,” to warn that it was a test, but included the phrase “This is not a drill,” which was not standard operating procedure for such simulations, Wiley said.
Workers Disciplined
Oliveira told a HI-EMA news conference that five other officers in the room realized it was a drill, but the employee using the alerting equipment didn't, and had made similar mistakes in past exercises involving a tsunami and a fire. Though that employee declined to be interviewed by the FCC, the staffer provided a written statement to Oliveira’s investigation, and Oliveira released it to the commission after his investigation was complete, he said. In the written statement, the employee claimed not to have heard the “exercise, exercise, exercise” portion. “Because we’ve not been able to interview the employee, we’re not in a position to evaluate the credibility of their assertion,” Wiley said.
Oliveira said the employee was counseled in the past for confusing tests and real alerts, and had worked at HI-EMA for 10 years. Other workers there said they didn’t feel comfortable working with the employee in question, Oliveira said. The employee was fired Friday, said Hawaii State Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Joe Logan. A HI-EMA employee charged with creating protocols for drills was suspended, and HI-EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi resigned, Logan said. The supervisor who initiated the drill wasn't disciplined, Logan said.
The incident was “worsened” by state officials’ delay in correcting the false message, the FCC reported. A correction was sent out on social media before using the emergency alert system to issue a correction, Wiley said. Though a cancellation was issued using the system, under then-protocol, that ceases “downstream” transmission of the message, doesn't trigger a retraction, Wiley said.
The FCC criticized the user interface used by Hawaii alerting software. The software didn’t provide visual cues to indicate that a user was about to trigger a real alert as opposed to a drill, Wiley said. Hawaii has asked its alerting equipment vendor to change the interface to prevent future incidents, and Oliveira said he recommended exercises be conducted on a separate computer system. Hawaii instituted a new protocol wherein two people will need to confirm alerts, Oliveira said.
The bureau criticized the “atypical” high frequency of drills and “no-notice” ones HI-EMA did beforehand. Emergency alerting entities emphasize the importance of frequent training, National Alliance of State Broadcaster Associations EAS Committee Chief Suzanne Goucher said, conceding that also can lead to operations becoming “routine.” That there’s a ballistic missile threat to Hawaii "means we should prepare,” Logan said.
Reaction
Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told us the new revelations don't change the course of emergency alerts legislation he's exploring with Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and others (see 1801170050). “It shows the need for the establishment of best practices at the federal level,” as the potential legislation would do, Schatz said. “It also demonstrates the risk of having [more than 3,000] counties, 50 states and five territories all with their own processes and procedures. This needs to be done federally.”
House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., told us he will bring up the shifted sequence of events during a February FCC oversight hearing that's to include Pai and the other commissioners and have a major focus on the Hawaii incident. “We're going to inquire about what they've learned so far” at the time of the hearing, Walden said. “I just go back to my old days in radio,” when all codes for the pre-EAS emergency broadcast system were regularly updated and provided a “fail-safe that would prevent a false national alert. I would think a missile attack would be in that category” now, “not something you'd generate by your local sheriff calling.”
“Hawaii has done us all a favor in a way, it’s made us all focus on how to cancel an alert,” said Goucher in an interview. Asked if her home state of Maine has protocols to respond to false alerts, Goucher said it was “a good question” and something she would look into.