Hawaii Missile Alert Dragged On Because Governor Forgot His Twitter Username, Password

Hawaii’s false missile alert causing widespread panic dragged on for 30 minutes because the governor reportedly forgot his Twitter username and password, so was unable to notify the public.

At least that’s one of the reasons.

Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency accidently fired off a false ballistic missile alert to mobile phones on Jan. 13, urging people to “seek immediate shelter,” noting that “this is not a drill,” the Huffington Post reported.

Gov. David Ige knew within minutes about the false alert, but it took at least 17 minutes after that for a correction to be issued, the New York Daily News reported.

On Monday Ige admitted his role in the debacle.

“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,” he said, per the Daily News.

Ige said he has now saved the information to his cellphone so that he can access his social media accounts without having to turn to his staff for assistance.

“I was in the process of making calls to the leadership team both in Hawaii Emergency Management as well as others,” he added, trying to explain the situation, per HuffPost.

The Hawaii governor apologized shortly after the incident, noting that “steps have already been taken by the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency to ensure that a situation of this type never happens again.”

I can personally assure each and every resident and visitor that steps have already been taken by the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency to ensure that a situation of this type never happens again.

— Governor David Ige (@GovHawaii) January 14, 2018

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