According to Bruce Oliveira, the retired Army general who led the state investigation, the message spoken by the shift leader did not adhere to the script outlined in the protocol. “What was actually said in the script was taken from an actual notification,” he said.

But the general emphasized that the shift leader had some “flexibility” and did say “exercise, exercise, exercise” before and after his message. That “tells everybody that this is a practice drill,” General Oliveira said.

Although other emergency management officials in Hawaii understood that the state was conducting a drill at the time, the employee who sent the alert said in a written statement that he had believed there was a real emergency.

The employee then chose from options in a drop-down menu that included test and real alerts. When prompted with the question “Are you sure you want to send this alert?” the employee clicked “yes,” according to the commission.

Panic set in across Hawaii almost immediately, with people furiously contacting members of their family and seeking shelter. The escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea added to the level of concern.

When the employee was directed to cancel the alert to prevent it from going to any phones that had not yet received it, he “just sat there and didn’t respond,” the state report said.

It took about 38 minutes to send a second alert that said the original one was an error. In its report, the Federal Communications Commission faulted Hawaii’s emergency agency for lacking measures to prevent the mistake and to quickly notify the public to disregard it.