Report and Recommendations on Hawaii Emergency Management Agency January 13, 2018 False Alert

On January 13, 2018 at 8:07 am, the State of Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sought to conduct an internal exercise of their ballistic missile defense drill using the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). The exercise went awry, resulting in HI-EMA sending the following message throughout Hawaii: BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. This false emergency alert resulted in 38 minutes of confusion, fear and uncertainty for the residents of Hawaii. It took HI-EMA until 8:20 am, 13 minutes after the initial alert, to provide the public with the first authoritative announcement over social media that this was a false alarm, and 38 minutes to issue a correction using EAS and WEA.

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, based on the Bureau’s investigation, the HI-EMA Report, HI-EMA’s January 30, 2018, press conference regarding the HI-EMA Report’s findings, the Hawaii Preparedness Report, HI-EMA’s publicly released audio recording of the internal drill initiation message, and the testimony submitted in connection with the April 5, 2018 Senate field hearing in Hawaii. The Bureau finds that a combination of human error and inadequate safeguards contributed to the transmission of the January 13 false alert. Neither the false alert nor the 38-minute delay to correct the false alert would have occurred had Hawaii implemented reasonable safeguards and protocols before January 13, 2018, to minimize the risk that HIEMA would issue a false alert, and to ensure that HI-EMA would be able to issue a rapid correction of any false alert that was delivered to the public. This report also notes the measures that the State of Hawaii has taken to ensure that an event like this does not happen again, such as its recent review of the state’s overall preparedness posture in the Hawaii Preparedness Report.