A forgotten Twitter password is to blame for the late response from the Hawaii governor during the fake missile alert crisis

One of the scariest moments of 2018 was when Hawaii was sent a message to their phone about a missile coming to their islands. At the time it was played off as real and caused panic all over the state.

The panic could have been avoided if the governor of Hawaii, David Ige, hadn’t forgotten his Twitter password. Yes, you read that correctly.

The governor knew about the missile crisis incident reportedly two minutes after it took place. It took him another 15 minutes to send out a tweet about it. “I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account log-on and the passwords, so certainly that’s one of the changes that I’ve made,” said the governor about the error on Monday. “I’ve been putting that on my phone so that we can access the social media directly.”

There is NO missile threat. https://t.co/qR2MlYAYxL

— Office of the Governor, State of Hawai`i (@GovHawaii) January 13, 2018

A correction to mobile devices was sent 40 minutes after the incident. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard tweeted 12 minutes after the event, and the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted a minute after her. They are reportedly responsible for sending out such alerts to the masses.

While the initial incident may not have been avoidable with the current parameters in place, the response after the fact could have been better. Having your Twitter password at the ready is the first step.

[The Verge]