By Nicole Darrah|Fox News
An emergency alert that warned of a ballistic missile heading directly for Hawaii on
Saturday, which was mistakenly sent out, caused panic and outrage among
celebrities, politicians, vacationers and locals.
Sent from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency at 8:07
a.m. local time, the alert read:
"BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO
HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
It took the agency
38 minutes to send a follow-up alert correcting the error.
Fox News' Greg Gutfeld said on Twitter that his wife, who
was at a hotel when she received the alert, said there was "total
hysteria/chaos. families evacuating told to seek a shelter. crying panic."
Actor Jim Carrey tweeted that he "woke up this
morning in Hawaii with ten minutes to live. It was a false alarm, but a real
psychic warning."
Sen. Mazie Hironi, D-Hawaii, tweeted that she would work
to find out why the alert was sent out.
Jane Bartlett Pappas, whose brother Alex Pappas is a
reporter with Fox News, is on the island of Oahu and while she received an
alert on her phone, no alarm system actually went off on the island.
Pappas added she didn't receive a notification that it
was false "until 30-40 minutes after the initial alert. I saw people getting
into their cars and running across the street." She also added that the
beach is now "crowded with people swimming and enjoying the beautiful
day!"
Hawaii Gov. David Ige said in a statement that
"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."
He added he's meeting with top officials to figure out
whay the alarm went off "and to prevent it from happening again."
Rep. Tusli Gabbard,
D-Hawaii, who sent out one of the first tweets warning that the emergency alert
was not accurate, later tweeted that "Everyone in American needs to
understand that if you had to go through this, you would be as angry as I am -
I have been talking about the seriousness of this threat for years."
"Our leaders have failed us for decades"
Gabbard noted, and added that Trump "is taking too long, needs to take
North Korea's "threat seriously," and that "we have to talk to
North Korea and find a peaceful path to get rid of this nuclear threat."
Twitter user @brynguist wrote the time after she received
the emergency alert "were the most terrifying of my life, until I finally
checked twitter and saw this."
Jill N. Tokuda, a Democratic member of the state's
Senate, tweeted that she "saw soccer parents running off the field in
fear; my boys & nieces are still very shaken."
A similar state of alarm and dismay manifested along the
H-3, a major highway north of Honolulu, where vehicles sat empty after drivers
left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert popped up, the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser reported.
According to The Associated Press, professional golfer
Colt Knost, staying at Waikiki Beach during a PGA Tour event, said
"everyone was panicking" in the lobby of his hotel.
"Everyone was running around like, 'What do we
do?'" he said.
Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz tweeted that the
false alarm was based on human error, and added: "What happened today is
totally inexcusable. The whole state was terrified. There needs to be tough and
quick accountability and a fixed process."
Sara Donchey, an anchor with Hawaii-based KPRC-TV,
tweeted that her family was hiding in their garage, and her mom and sister were
both crying after receiving the emergency alert.
Twitter user @JasonMan811 tweeted that his father, who is
in Hawaii, sent him a text that read, "People ran out screaming at
breakfast," after receiving the alert. "The line went down so I got
more food at the buffett. Cleared out the place."
Rep. Dan Kilee, D-Mich., tweeted: "There should be a
very close review of the emergency systems in place to make sure another false
alarm isn't the result of a single human error."
