Update on the Hawaii nuclear false alarm
I’m not sure whether this news makes it better or worse.
I think perhaps worse:
The Hawaii employee who sent out a false alarm earlier this month warning of an incoming missile attack said they misheard a message played during a drill and believed a ballistic missile was actually heading for the state, according to a federal investigation.
This directly contradicts the explanations previously offered by Hawaii officials…
So “Hawaii officials” either lied about it or didn’t even know what had happened. Fancy that.
Or I suppose the feds could be lying about it. But the newer story has the ring of truth to me:
This mistake began when a night-shift supervisor decided to test incoming day-shift workers with a spontaneous drill, the FCC report stated. The supervisor managing the day-shift workers appeared to be aware of the upcoming test but believed it was aimed at the outgoing night-shift workers. As a result, the day-shift manager was not prepared to supervise the morning test, the FCC said.
Following standard procedures, the night-shift supervisor posing as U.S. Pacific Command played a recorded message to the emergency workers warning them of the fake threat. The message included the phrase “Exercise, exercise, exercise,” the FCC report said, but it also had the “This is not a drill” language used for actual missile alerts.
The worker who then sent the emergency alert said they did not hear the “exercise” part of the message. This person, who has not been publicly identified, declined to be interviewed by investigators, but they did provide a written statement, the FCC said.
Perhaps you’ve noticed, as I did, that this WaPo article repeatedly uses the word “they” instead of the more conventional “he” or “she” for the culprit. “They” is plural and gender neutral, and is grammatically incorrect, since only one worker misunderstood and sounded the alarm. Why the weird grammar from the WaPo? Are they (the WaPo writers and/or editors, plural) trying to cover up the fact that it was more than one worker? Or (more likely, I think) are they shielding us from knowledge of the worker’s gender, in order to protect that gender?
I’m not being sexist there. I didn’t originally assume it was a woman. But that’s the only explanation that occurs to me for the strange grammar the WaPo uses in the story. I am critical of the WaPo for many reasons, but they usually exhibit knowledge of the basics of grammar.
As for the substance of the report, it’s not what you’d call reassuring.
I guess the moral of the story is if you’re interested in launching a missile at Hawaii do it at a shift change.
It amazes me how much damage can be done because of a miscommunication. “This is not a drill.” Really! Plus, how is it that the shmuck who made the decision to do this pop drill, wasn’t able to pick up the phone and dial a couple TV stations and radio stations and stop the panic?
I just saw a program on the investigation of the air disaster at Tenerife airport many years ago that killed over 500 people. The controller and pilots used the word “takeoff” for taxiing into position for takeoff, asking or announcing being in position for takeoff, and finally having authorization for actual takeoff.
The pilot mistook one of those earlier “takeoffs” for authorization which he did not have. Now the word “departure” is used exclusively, except for final authorization for takeoff.
TommyJay,
I watched that ‘Air Disasters’ episode on the collision in the Canary Islands also. It really is amazing how many major air disasters seem to be partly or wholly caused by miscommunication or language issues.
And younger pilots deferring to older ones seems to be a running theme also.
For something this serious they should have a slightly watered down version of the two man rule to prevent stupid mistakes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-man_rule
A friend of mine avoided service in Viet Nam by joining the Airforce and was assigned to a Minuteman silo.
They all had to pass a psychological exam. If I remember correctly, they were each given a side arm to be used in case the other operator went nuts.
Yes, the WaPo is covering up for a woman who screwed up. Democracy dies in Darkness and we’re doing our best to kill it.
Maybe the WaPoo is so woke that specifying gender in pronouns is out, out, out. Or maybe the worker has a split personality and thinks he/she is they. Or is transgender and in transition. Or identifies as twins. Who are we to judge?
Seems to me using ‘they’ is done to protect the identity of the worker by, in part, not specifying that person’s gender.
Otherwise, this is just more evidence for my argument that government entities and their staffs are dangerously incompetent.
And apparently the mysterious ‘they’ has screwed up previous drills involving fire and tsunami warnings. And still employed. Can’t beat government work.
@Griffin, OMG, Good luck Hawaii
As far as communicating, the new use of “they” as an English language gender neutral singular pronoun is really confusing. I read it to mean a slew of people, rather than a single person.
Could also be that the wapo article is actually being specific. By being so carefully PC, maybe ‘they’ inadvertently outed an individual who militantly identifies as nongender conforming, unless there are several.
Perhaps the gender traits (e.g. orientation) are uncorrelated with the genetic sex, which in the age of political congruence (“=”), is cause for progressive confusion.
I worked in emergency response situations. Amber Alerts, Silver Alerts, and I would think Missile Alerts all require more than 1 person to vett before sending out. It is the rule of 2 or 3, depending on your Standard operating Processes. One person must verify what you are doing, and another signs off. This is common practice. There is generally a few checks.
I believe that news reports from other outlets more informative than WaPoo have identified “they” as “he”. WaPoo appears to be leading a race to the bottom.
“So “Hawaii officials” either lied about it or didn’t even know what had happened. Fancy that.”
Yep, and with this latest version of the story they went from “not reassuring” to downright “what they heck are they doing?”.
Could have been worse, could have been an oil tanker ran aground…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
“So “Hawaii officials” either lied about it or didn’t even know what had happened.”
Both options logically-and-morally equate to “they lied about it”.
“Or (more likely, I think) are they shielding us from knowledge of the worker’s [sex] …”
That’s how it seems to me.
Speaking of the abuse of “they” and other pronouns real and fake, and of words in general:
Thus Jordan Peterson to Mark Steyn, at 6:13 into their discussion of legal constraints and requirements on language in order to force ideology on people. The initiatives and statutes regarding such use are steps on the road to totalitarianism — starting with the loss of free speech, but there is much more to be lost as we travel down that road.
(As for the misuse of “they” with a singular antecedent, that has been a standard mistake for at least the nearly 3/4-century that I’ve been speaking American English like a native. I note that Dr. Peterson himself makes the error, in this very quote! *g* But in standard parlance it’s just that — a mistake, not purposeful, and certainly not a required abuse of the word.)
“The Mark Steyn Show with Jordan Peterson,” published 4/13/17, at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4obxH2vSms