Hawaii Gov. Didn't Know Twitter Login To Correct Missile Alert

An emergency alert that a ballistic missile was headed towards Hawaii flashed across iPhone screens earlier this month, sending residents running for cover and making phone calls to their loved ones. It was over 40 minutes later that residents were informed the alert was actually a false alarm and there was no missile headed towards the state.

Apparently one of the contributing factors to the delayed correction was the fact that Hawaii Gov. David Ige did not have the login information for his Twitter account. The ballistic missile alert went out at 8:07 a.m. and the correction from Ige's official governor's account came 17 minutes later at 8:24 a.m. even though Ige knew it was a false alarm two minutes after the alert went out.

At a press conference Monday, Ige was asked about the delay in response and here's what he had to say, per The Honolulu Star Advertiser:

“I was in the process of making calls to the leadership team both in Hawaii Emergency Management as well as others," Ige said. “I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account log-ons and the passwords, so certainly that’s one of the changes that I’ve made. I’ve been putting that on my phone so that we can access the social media directly.”

Maj. Gen. Arthur "Joe" Logan, the Hawaii National Guard's top commander, told state lawmakers at a hearing that he called at 8:09 a.m. to inform him of the false alert. Cindy McMillan, Ige's spokeswoman, told The Associated Press the governor had to track her down to prepare a message for the public as Ige's communications team handles his social media.

Brig. Gen. Kenneth Hara, Logan's deputy, told lawmakers the state is exploring changing the emergency management agency's computer software so workers won't have to select alerts from a drop-down menu. Last weekend's mistake occurred when the employee selected an actual missile alert from the drop-down menu instead of a missile alert drill message. One possibility would be to use icons with color codes for the different alert options, Hara said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Photo by Caleb Jones/Associated Press