page_title: Emergency Alert System
section_title: False alarms
hierarchical_section_title: Emergency Alert System / Incidents / False alarms
caption_attribution_description: English: An image of the alert erroneously sent to cellphones in Hawaiʻi on 13 January 2018中文: 2018年1月13日手機所接收到的夏威夷導彈誤報的圖片文言: 西元二千十八年一月十三日，檀島誤報導彈，所接風警如圖
context_page_description: The Emergency Alert System is a national warning system in the United States put into place on January 1, 1997, when it replaced the Emergency Broadcast System, which in turn replaced CONELRAD. It is jointly coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The EAS regulations and standards are governed by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC.
  As with its predecessors, the system is primarily designed to allow the president to address the country via all radio and television stations, in the event of a national emergency. Despite this, neither the system nor its predecessors have been used in this manner, due to the ubiquity of news coverage in these situations. In practice, it is more commonly used to distribute information regarding imminent threats to public safety, such as severe weather situations, AMBER Alerts of child abductions, and other civic emergencies.
  Authorized organizations are able to disseminate and coordinate emergency alerts and warning messages through EAS.
context_section_description: On February 1, 2005 in Connecticut, an alert was mistakenly issued calling for the immediate evacuation of the entire state. The alert contained no specific detail on why it had been issued. The message was broadcast due to operator error while conducting an unannounced, but scheduled statewide test. A study conducted following the incident reported that at least 11% of residents actually saw the warning live, and that 63% of those surveyed were "a little or not at all concerned"—citing a suspicious lack of detail in the message, which a legitimate alert would include. Only 1% of those surveyed actually attempted to leave the state. Connecticut State Police did not receive any calls related to the incident.
  On June 26, 2007 at 7:35 a.m. CDT, an Emergency Action Notification was accidentally issued in the state of Illinois, when a new satellite receiver at the state's EOC was accidentally connected to a live system before final internal testing of the new delivery path had been completed. The alert was followed by dead air, and then audio from designated station 720 WGN in Chicago being simulcast across almost every television and radio station in the Chicago area and throughout much of Illinois. A confused Spike O'Dell, host of the station's morning show at the time, was heard on-air wondering "what that beeping was all about".
  On May 19, 2010, NOAA Weather Radio and CSEPP tone alert radios in the Hermiston, Oregon area, near the Umatilla Chemical Depot, were activated with an EAS alert shortly after 5 p.m. The message transmitted was for a severe thunderstorm warning, issued by the National Weather Service in Pendleton, but the transmission broadcast instead was a long period of silence, followed by a few words in Spanish. Umatilla County Emergency Management has stressed there was no emergency at the depot.
  On September 3, 2016, in the wake of Tropical Storm Hermine, an alert was displayed on television calling for the immediate evacuation of the entirety of Suffolk County, abruptly ending with the incomplete sentence "This is an emergency message from". About 15 minutes after the original message was sent, the alert was re-issued with an addendum clarifying that the alert was actually calling for a voluntary evacuation of Fire Island—a barrier island of Long Island. Officials cited an error in the county's Code Red system; while the correct message was entered into the system, an error processing an abbreviated message for television resulted in the error.
  On August 15, 2017 at approximately 12:25 a.m. local time, Guam stations KTWG and KSTO transmitted a civil danger warning for the island; Guam Homeland Security described the message, which interrupted programming on the stations, and was received on television by some viewers, as being an "unauthorized test" of the EAS. The incident's impact was strengthened, as North Korea had threatened the launch of ballistic missiles towards Guam only a few days beforehand. Numerous calls to 911 operators and the Department of Homeland Security were made following the broadcast.
  On January 13, 2018 at approximately 8:07 a.m. local time, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) mistakenly issued an emergency alert warning of a ballistic missile inbound threatening the region, which was claimed to be not a drill. 38 minutes later, it was announced by HI-EMA and the Honolulu Police Department that the alert was a false alarm. The incident came amidst heightened concern over the possibility that Hawaii could be targeted by North Korean missiles (in December 2017, Hawaii tested its missile sirens for the first time since the Cold War). HI-EMA administrator Vern Miyagi stated that the incident was a "mistake made during a standard procedure at the change over of a shift".
caption: On January 13, 2018, a false alarm was issued warning of a missile threat to Hawaii.
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