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Home Front: WoT
Worker who sent out Hawaii missile alert re-assigned
2018-01-15
[NYPost] The Hawaii public employee who plunged the state into chaos by accidentally sending out an incoming-missile emergency alert Saturday has been re-assigned, according to reports.

The unnamed emergency-department worker will not be fired because he made an honest mistake, said Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Rapoza to the Washington Post.

"Part of the problem was it was too easy ‐ for anyone ‐ to make such a big mistake," Rapoza said. "We have to make sure that we're not looking for retribution, but we should be fixing the problems in the system. … I know that it's a very, very difficult situation for him."

The agency has already put in place new safeguards to prevent such a misfire ‐ including a "cancel" button that will immediately send out corrective alerts when an erroneous warning is issued, officials said Sunday
Posted by:Frank G

#20  Tapu nui loa!

Sounds like "Good luck with that!"
Posted by: gorb   2018-01-15 23:41  

#19  I have an answer. From the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy.

"He reached out and pressed an invitingly large red button on a nearby panel. The panel lit up with the words Please do not press this button again."
Posted by: S. Thrith9686   2018-01-15 22:50  

#18  This is not a knock against engineers in general. BUT I had engineers work in my department who would walk up to a control panel and just start pushing every button in sight. Because. And get huffy when criticized. Screamed at, really. Serial button pushers.
Posted by: Blackbeard Bumble5724   2018-01-15 21:59  

#17  Congrats! You just re-assigned the one person on the planet who is least likely to make *that* mistake again.

You can try to keep people from making mistakes, but humans are clever and adaptive. (idiot-proofing vs the Better Idiot). Think about that confirmation dialog that pops up when you delete a file on your computer. You've clicked OK so often that it has become part of the muscle memory used for deleting a file.

We don't think about how our systems are going to fail and how to recover from that event. This is bad because we increasingly rely on ever more complicated systems while continuing to assume they will "just work" The Northeast blackout of 2003 is an fine example of what should have been a local event cascading into widespread shutdown of the power grid.

The fact that it took 40 minutes to send out the equivalent of "Doh!" is shameful. Somebody needs a kick in the ass and it ain't the guy who pushed the wrong button.
Posted by: SteveS   2018-01-15 16:07  

#16  The agency has already put in place new safeguards to prevent such a misfire ‐ including a "cancel" button that will immediately send out corrective alerts when an erroneous warning is issued, officials said Sunday.

And, how long should everyone wait for a corrective alert before taking the first alert seriously?
Posted by: Ulaigum Ebbineng7056   2018-01-15 13:41  

#15  Then there is that federal judge in Hawaii who keeps trying to run Trump's foreign immigration policy. Fire him too.

Later this afternoon if possible.
Posted by: Besoeker   2018-01-15 13:24  

#14  In 1990 I visited Hawaii for my first & only time. Arriving air passengers were given a long printout of items they were not allowed to bring on land - like certain/all fruit from the mainland.
New arrivals were told absolutely nothing about all the sirens mounted on poles, brightly colored, which ringed each & every island. Even the sirens had little information attached to them to inform newcomers that they were the tsunami alerts, and if they started wailing, everyone was to move uphill ASAP.
Either the state EMA figured every arrival in Hawaii already knew this, or the EMA simply didn't give a damn about informing visitors of a deadly danger almost unique to Hawaii. {Neither did car rental agencies bother to pass the word.)
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2018-01-15 13:16  

#13  Then there is that federal judge in Hawaii who keeps trying to run Trump's foreign immigration policy. Fire him too.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2018-01-15 12:58  

#12  My gut feeling is that Hawaiian EMA is stuck on stupid & needs to be abolished & rebuilt. At the minimum the CEO of the Agency needs to be fired.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2018-01-15 12:56  

#11  My gut suspects the system was hacked and there is a bit of a cover-up going on about it.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2018-01-15 12:07  

#10  Remember Glenmore one of Murpy's Laws: "NOTHING IS FOOL-PROOF,BECAUSE FOOLS ARE SO INGENIOUS!"
Posted by: Eohippus Slack5175   2018-01-15 11:43  

#9  Once or twice a winter I still get my finger snapped in a mouse trap.
Posted by: Skidmark   2018-01-15 10:26  

#8  Procopius2k, re the 'Do you really want to do this' cover, the shear ram switch on our offshore blowout preventer had a cage around it and a sign, yet an operator somehow - he never could/did say - managed to activate the rams, shear and drop the drill string, and junk the multi-million dollar well. No matter how idiot-proof we make things, we can always find a better idiot.
Posted by: Glenmore   2018-01-15 09:35  

#7  Tapu nui loa*

* In Biden-speak, "Big F'n no-no"
Posted by: Alistaire Lumplump5242   2018-01-15 09:11  

#6  Fire a Hawaii Gov't worker? Tapu nui loa!
Posted by: Alistaire Lumplump5242   2018-01-15 09:05  

#5  The common sense "two man/person" technique escapes them. Frightened, scurrying democrats... the downside ?

Posted by: Besoeker   2018-01-15 08:28  

#4  Don't they usually make those type of buttons with covers on them in order to reduce 'accidents'? You know, the kind you have to flip up or over in order to have access to the button, the 'Do you really want to do this' cover.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2018-01-15 08:19  

#3  I'm not buying the story
Posted by: Frank G   2018-01-15 07:35  

#2  ....On the other hand, we should at least be grateful that, officially, the Person Responsible is showing some remorse, and that there was actually some action taken. I was sure that nothing would be done because the Person Responsible was a member of an Oppressed Group or some other get-out-of-jail-free status.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2018-01-15 04:45  

#1  Wrong guy. The system designer needs to be reassigned.
Posted by: gorb   2018-01-15 00:59  

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