Not his first rodeo.
Via Hawaii News Now:
In a stunning revelation Tuesday, state investigators said the emergency management employee who sent out the false missile alert to Hawaii phones — triggering 38 minutes of panic until a correction could be sent — believed the threat of an incoming missile was real and had a history of confusing drills with real-world events.
The news, another embarrassing chapter in a story that’s shaken the public’s trust in the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, came on the same day that officials announced that state worker who sent the alert has been fired and emergency management Administrator Vern Miyagi has resigned.
Meanwhile, in a news conference Tuesday, Gov. David Ige said he wasn’t informed that the worker who sent the false missile alert did so intentionally until Monday, when state investigators completed a probe into the fiasco.
“I was not aware until the general issued the report,” Ige said. “I certainly wasn’t aware of any of this specific information.”
In the minutes and days following the false missile alert, the governor and other state officials have characterized the message about an inbound ballistic missile that went to millions of phones as a mistake; the “button pusher” didn’t mean to send out the alert, the governor has said, and he only realized his mistake when it appeared on his own phone.
Emergency management officials have been practicing routine ballistic missile defense drills for several months, as part of a campaign to better prepare Hawaii for the threat of a nuclear attack.
In its report, released Tuesday, the state said the drill on Jan. 13 started as previous ones had: A recorded message was played over loudspeakers at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency that began “exercise, exercise, exercise” and then warned of an incoming ballistic missile.
In its own report, the FCC said the employee who sent out the false alert heard “This is not a drill,” but didn’t hear “exercise.”
But the state report says five other employees on at the time knew that the drill wasn’t real. […]
The employee who sent the alert, said retired Brig. Gen. Bruce Oliveira, who was charged with conducting the state’s internal investigation, had a history of “confusing drills and real-world drills.”
Meanwhile on Tuesday, the state said that one other employee at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency has resigned — the department’s executive officer Toby Clairmont — and one employee will be suspended.
HT: puhiawa