HONOLULU -- A former Hawaii state worker who sent a false missile alert last month said Friday that he's devastated for causing panic but that he was "100 percent sure" at the time that the attack was real.
The man in his 50s spoke to reporters on the condition that he not be identified because he fears for his safety after receiving threats.
He said the on-duty call he received Jan. 13 didn't sound like a drill. However, state officials have said other workers clearly heard the word "exercise" repeated several times.
He said it felt like he had been hit with a "body blow" when he realized it was just a drill and that he has had difficulty eating and sleeping since.
The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency fired him.
The man's superiors said they knew for years that he had problems performing his job. The worker had mistakenly believed drills for tsunami and fire warnings were actual events, and colleagues were not comfortable working with him, the state said.
His supervisors counseled him but kept him for a decade in a position that had to be renewed each year.
The ex-worker disputed that, saying he wasn't aware of any performance problems.
Either way, the problems at the agency went beyond the one employee.
Federal and state reports say the agency had a vague checklist for missile alerts, allowing workers to interpret the steps they should follow differently. Managers didn't require a second person to sign off on alerts before they were sent, and the agency lacked any preparation on how to correct a false warning.
Those details emerged Tuesday in reports on investigations about how the agency mistakenly blasted cellphones and broadcast stations with the missile warning.
It took nearly 40 minutes for the agency to figure out a way to retract the false alert on the same platforms it was sent to.
"The protocols were not in place. It was a sense of urgency to put it in place as soon as possible. But those protocols were not developed to the point they should have," retired Brig. Gen. Bruce Oliveira, who wrote the report on Hawaii's internal investigation, said at a news conference.
A Section on 02/03/2018