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Michael Kucharek, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado, said NORAD and the U.S. Northern Command are still trying to verify what happened in Hawaii \u2014 but that \u201cNORAD did not see anything that indicated any sort of threat to Hawaii.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom a NORAD perspective and that of the U.S. Northern Command, we are still trying to verify what happened,\u201d he said of the false alert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NORAD is a U.S.-Canada joint command that conducts aerospace warning, aerospace control and maritime warning to defend North America. The U.S. Northern Command, also based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is tasked with air, land and sea defense of the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico and portions of the Caribbean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alert caused a tizzy on the island and across social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the PGA Tour event on Oahu, Waialae Country Club was largely empty and players were still a few hours from arriving. The tournament staff urged the media center to evacuate. \u201cThis is not a drill,\u201d said Candice Kraughto, who runs the press operations for the Sony Open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A local radio show from the clubhouse, next to glass windows that overlook the Pacific, kept broadcasting. Staff members at the club streamed into the clubhouse and tried to seek cover in the locker room, which was filled with the players\u2019 golf bags, but instead went into the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several players took to Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust woke up here in Hawaii to this lovely text. Somebody can verify this?\u201d tweeted Emiliano Grillo of Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Justin Thomas, the PGA Tour player of the year, tweeted, \u201cTo all that just received the warning along with me this morning … apparently it was a \u2018mistake\u2019?? hell of a mistake!! Haha glad to know we\u2019ll all be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaime Malapit, owner of a Honolulu hair salon, texted his clients that he was cancelling their appointments and was closing his shop for the day. He said he was still in bed when the phone started going off \u201clike crazy.\u201d He thought it was a tsunami warning at first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI woke up and saw missile warning and thought no way. I thought \u2018No, this is not happening today,\u2018\u201d Malapit said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was still \u201ca little freaked out\u201d and feeling paranoid even after hearing it was a false alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard Ing, a Honolulu attorney, was doing a construction project at home when his wife told him about the alert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He dug his phone out and had confirmed he had the same alert. Attempts to find further information on the television or radio didn\u2019t provide further information, but then he saw on Twitter that it was a false alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While he was trying to confirm, his wife and children were preparing to evacuate in case they needed to move to safer ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After finding out it was a mistake, Ing tried to find some humor in the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought to myself, it must be someone\u2019s last day at work or someone got extremely upset at a superior and basically did this as a practical joke,\u2019 he said. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s a very serious problem if it wasn\u2019t that, or even it was, it shows that we have problems in the system that can cause major disruption and panic and anxiety among people in Hawaii.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some were outraged that such an alert could go out in error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hawaii U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz tweeted the false alarm was \u201ctotally inexcusable\u201d and was caused by human error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere needs to be tough and quick accountability and a fixed process,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2015 Associated Press writers Caleb Jones in Honolulu, Doug Ferguson in Maui, Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Jim Anderson in Denver and Tom Strong in Washington contributed to this report.
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The alert that stated there was a threat \u201cinbound to Hawaii\u201d caused panic among local residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,16,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2817],"class_list":["post-31925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-news","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EMHQ3L6UZJDSNC2T3NVTPVGYJQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/2018\/01\/13\/ballistic-missile-alert-in-hawaii-was-false-alarm-officials-say\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n