QC family in Hawaii during false alarm threat

(KWQC)
Published: Jan. 16, 2018 at 10:36 PM CST
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One local family was vacationing in Hawaii when they received an emergency alert on their phones. Bettendorf resident, Ashley Parry, said her family was hiking up an inactive volcano.

"We were about three-fourths of the way up to the top of Diamond Head so, we kind of didn't really have any place to go. We were mid-trail," said Parry.

She said everyone's phone went off at once. Hawaii emergency management officials said an alert was mistakenly sent to people's cellphones. It warned of an inbound missile threat to Hawaii.

"And so everyone was kind of just looking around like what do we do? Is it real?" she said.

Parry said everyone was relatively calm, despite the situation.

"I think everyone was kind of just panicking on the inside because we didn't know. It was kind of surreal. We didn't know if it was really coming or if it was a mistake like thankfully it was," she said.

She said she thinks people remained calm because there was nothing they could do in that moment. Her family decided to keep going in order to reach the top and see the view.

"I think we all felt like this isn't even realistic, but I think we kind of felt like everything was going to be okay for us," she said.

Parry said it was a scary situation, but is thankful her family is safe.

She said they received a letter at their hotel room from the Hawaii governor apologizing for the mistake and explaining what had happened.

It took nearly 40 minutes for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to inform people the alert was a false alarm.

The Hawaii governor addressed the state on Monday, apologizing for the error and said this won't happen again.