Lessons will be learned...
How come the person who sent the alert could get away with refusing to be interviewed?
The individual who sent an emergency text to everyone in Hawaii warning them of an imminent missile attack did not hit the wrong button as first claimed – and was actually convinced a real attack was happening. That's according to a report published Tuesday by America's comms watchdog, the Federal Communications Commission ( …
>>> How come the person who sent the alert could get away with refusing to be interviewed?
Probably a combination of jurisdiction (the Feds have a hard time compelling State govt. apparatus) and civil service rules. Without probable cause to suspect a crime, the Feds can't get a warrant and have to rely on co-operation.
>On the flip side - this is pretty much what drills are designed to iron out
Right. Which makes the idea that
"The decision to run a no-notice live drill on a shift change is also met with raised eyebrows. "
seem a bit daft. They had problems with their system that this drill uncovered - some of them sound like problems they might have predicted but still it's better to know about them than not.
They had problems with their system that this drill uncovered - some of them sound like problems they might have predicted but still it's better to know about them than not.
Agreed. While this isn't the right way to run a drill, it did reveal problems, and according to the reports I've seen there were no related deaths or injuries (which there well could have been, in a panic). As a screw-up, it definitely falls short of classics in the field, such as the Great Disappointment.
Given a choice between recent embarrassing US government escapades, I'd take the Hawaii Missile Scare over Trump's State of the Union blathering. (Though to be fair the SotU speech is rarely substantive or interesting, regardless of who's in the Oval.)
seem a bit daft. They had problems with their system that this drill uncovered - some of them sound like problems they might have predicted but still it's better to know about them than not.
That is my thought on it. This is why we test; not to fill out a checklist that says "we tried this, it worked", but to find where things break. If you haven't broken something by the end, you haven't really tested anything.
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Apparently in Hawaiian they have a saying just for situations like this it's wedu nagivafaka.
wtf was that link to? and I quote,
"I mean, really: How weird is it that this happened twice within two days? Very. You think this was an accident? You think a fuck-up this epic wasn’t focus tested ahead of time by the lizard cabal that lives at the center of the Earth? Get fucking real."
I mean seriously, center is spelt centre for fuck sake.
Back to the story I'm guessing the local supermarkets will be having their "New Baby Event" sales in October this year.
In the rest of the world, centre is used as center. To further confuse you, many folks take the two spellings as separate meanings. Center is treated as the word for a place or institution and centre is considered as the word for the middle point of something.
...boots, bonnets, bog rolls, flats.
Tom-A-toe, tom-AH-toe.
Aluminum, aluminium.
...and the lizard people at the center of the Earth? Most Reg readers are familiar with the concept and are simply waiting to see who rules us in the end; The lizard people or the robot overlords.
My money's on robotic lizard people.
@Aladdin Sane,
More like helps preserve your teeth by preventing you from slamming face first into the seat in front of you. And better transferring any forces from a crash through the seat, minimizing injury. There is plenty of research on the brace position, and most of it is public. There is no reason to be spouting crap like that. The "the brace position is designed to kill you so the airlines don't have to pay for disabilities" bullshit conspiracy is believed by enough people already. Let's not add to it.
We had one of those too. Confusingly, it was also used for flood warnings after 1953 (not that our area ever flooded, although the river did get a bit close to the top a few times). They'd test the siren twice a year but most people never saw the notice in the local paper, so it just got ignored. They finally took it down in the late 80s, after the threat of nuclear war was judged to be minimal. Naturally the river burst its banks the year after.
One's a cut of beef, the other is a violent whirling wind accompanied by a cloud that is shaped like a funnel which moves overland in a destructive, narrow path.
Peh-cahns are for eating, pee-cans are for truckers.
And amonds are amonds ... To harvest them, you shake the L out of the trees.
In the UK it's suddenly become OK to pronounce the "l" in almond, with a short a as in the abbreviated name "Al". [Mr. Al Mond]. To my ear it sounds horrible and artificial. Perversely "Ralph" is often now pronounced "Rafe". Celebs who have been known as "Ralph Somebody" all their lives are now mysteriously transformed into Rafes.And while I'm on a mini-rant a macaroon type cake has now become a "macaron" They've been macaroons for the whole of my life, perfectly acceptably so. Suddenly they've been made into mac-a-bloody-rons FFS.
There's a series of sirens in the Middle Neck of Virginia, around the Surry nuclear power station. They have to test those once a month. Thing is, the test siren (a couple long blares) has a totally different pattern from an actual energency siren (which has short blares).
I found this rather puzzling "... the Emergency Management Agency (EMA) starts calling TV and radio stations to get the message out but its phone lines become clogged as the public try to find out what is going on."
So that means EMA depends on the public networks for emergency communications with the media?!? That seems to be asking for trouble. I appreciate it might not be as easy to set up fixed circuits to a few key media as it would have been in the days of analogue telephony. But surely they could provide some alternative channel - carrier pigeon, if need be (https://www.gchq.gov.uk/features/pigeon-takes-secret-message-grave).
"Semaphore code using brightly coloured grass skirts signalling arm and body movements."
Lost in the horizon due to the distances between islands, unless you're of the Flat Earth cult who honestly believe that's the opposing beach you see across the miles of ocean between islands.
As for radio, one good typhoon or volcanic eruption will knock out all the power to the radio transmitters (including the backups).
The sirens go off here, Oahu, for approaching hurricanes and possible tsunamis. Often there is a sub 1ft wave or a not too destructive storm. Every couple of months our phones blare with flash flood alerts which affect parts of the island. Monthly the sirens go off in tests now including the attack warning. On occasion a local siren or two go off for no reason.
Our state is often very inefficient. We feel the need to reinvent everything before deploying it even when others have a successful model.
I was not surprised we would have an error so only thought there was an off chance of casualties other than heart attacks and deaths caused by panic.
When I used run drills on sensitive equipment, we would have a drill team member stationed by each control station where actual damage could be done. The chain of actions and responses would run its course until the very end when the drill team member would cover the switch or valve with their hand and inform the operator that the switch was now "simulated pressed", etc. If they want, they can hire me to go out to Hawaii and do the same for them. My rates are very reasonable.