Under the current circumstances between the U.S. and North Korea, it wouldn’t come off as too much a surprise if a nuclear attack was targeted at one of the states. This is exactly what happened with our state in the West Coast, Hawaii.

An emergency alert was sent out to everyone in Hawaii on January 13th, reading a very serious message: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Hawaiians were lost in chaos and left in horrible panic as everyone ran amok in search for a safe place to stay. According to The Verge, it was only about 40 minutes afterwards, that another message was sent out, declaring that the previous emergency alert was a false alarm.

People were furious, not just in the state of Hawaii, but across the country. Many were upset over the incident and questioning how something like could’ve happened. It was very infuriating for two reasons. One, because of the havoc that was created due to the false alert, and two, because of how long it took officials to state that the message was accidental.

Based on The Washington Post, the Democratic Governor of Hawaii, David Ige, eventually made a broadcast two days later addressing what had happened. The governor apologized sincerely for what happened but was not able to give citizens any of the answers to their questions.

“I wish I could say there was a simple reason for why it took so long to get the correction to the false alert out,” he said during the broadcast.

He then went on to discuss as much as he can about how the emergency management system works to give people a sort of idea on how it might’ve happened. Ige also made a statement that Brig. Gen. Kenneth S. Hara, the Deputy Adjutant General of Hawaii, will do a review on the state’s emergency management enterprise. The FCC has also declared that they will be doing a thorough check on the false missile incident. According to CBS news, there will now be a briefing on Friday to discuss the whole situation and get a full understanding of what really happened. The 10 year employee that caused this will be reassigned to a different job by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency that does not have any access to the emergency system.