Hawaii. An Emergency Alert that read Ballistic Missile threat inbound hawaii, seek immediate shelter, this is not a drill. State Officials Say it was a false alarm. A mistake. The change of shift is about three people, 24 7, eighthour shifts. That should have been caught. It should not have happened. That coming into us within the last hour. While it may have been a false alarm, you can guess the fear was real. When we got the alarm, we were actually terrified. We were on the 36th floor of our hotel. And we didnt know what to do. We were kinda frantic. Just started running. We went to a concrete building. People were running on the street, all desperate. A short time ago, new york republican congressman dan donovan tweeted, im following the issues with the hawaii Emergency Alert and as chairman of the committee on emergency preparedness, ill be looking into what happened. Im holding a hearing on february 6th, and this among other important Emergency Alert issues will be addressed. Congressman donovan joins us now. As youre getting the information as we are here, coming out of the state of hawaii, the administrators you heard there, taking responsibility for what happened there at 8 05 a. M. Local time. 15 minutes later is when they then also put out a tweet saying the Emergency Alert was wrong. But you had the 15 minutes of folks running, as we see here at the university of hawaii, scared. What do you hope to do february 6, sir . Were going to examine we had this planned before todays incident, richard. We have witnesses from fema, integrated public alerts and Warning Program coming to testify. Folks from the fcc, the Public Safety bureau, public stakeholders and private sector witnesses. And even before this terrible mistake today, we were going to examine alerts and make sure theyre reliable and that the public can have confidence in them and to make sure the alerts are getting to the citizens of our great nations. So this was all planned beforehand. I understand the fcc will launch an investigation about todays incident, but were going to look at the program as a whole and making sure that the reliability is there and the people have confidence in it. One of the tough questions that i know youll be consideri considering, and Jacob Soboroff has been reporting on this very system, the message filtering down from fema, where the Emergency Alert came from. Do you see as a potential option, not to have state agencies being responsible for these Emergency Alert this last mile, if you will, of the Warning System . I dont want to jump to a judgment yet until we conduct our hearing, and explore possibilities with the witnesses. And i want to explore the possibility, how did such an alert go out with one human being being able to touch one button, even if it was by mistake. Many of our systems have controls in place that prevent mistakes, whether it be more than one person having to be participating in sending out something, or whether there has to be some code that was first put into place before you could touch that button. So these are many of the things we have to explore, and certainly after todays incident, the hawaii mistake is going to be probably a central part of the hearing. Sir, are you aware of the systems that vary across our 50 great states . Does each state have a different process by which they would decide whether or not to push out these Emergency Alerts . I believe they do. Its a separation between federal government and the states. And the states certainly have their responsibility to their citizens in pushing out alerts. And theres not one main, Central Standard that im aware of. Whether or not there should be one, i dont want to jump to conclusions until we have the february 6th and hear from the expert at that hearing and each of the hearings ive conducted as chairman of the Homeland Security committee has always ended in some type of report and recommendations to those on the ground. Well do the same after this is conducted. Now you have another major example and issue to discuss. What was your thought about the strength, about some of the improvements that you wanted to make with our Emergency Alert system across the country and these state responsible agencies related to that . We want to make sure that mistakes like this dont happen. Ive been following your reporting, richard. The fear that was instilled in the people of hawaii. Im watching the people from the campus of the university of hawaii running. You can imagine being separated from our family and not knowing where your family is. You can imagine if people back here in the mainland knew they had relatives on vacation in hawaii, aside from the residents of that great state. One of the objectives of the hearing was, first of all, to make sure were getting the alerts out to our citizens, making sure that theyre reliable, that people can have confidence in them. But certainly now, with this blaring mistake, making sure that we can prevent mistakes like happened today. Something i was talking about the last hour, when we watch video like this, and we are discussing the potential panic, we listen to some of those who were in hawaii just moments ago. It reminds us of those unfortunate decades of the cold war. And the very systems that, in fact, have been revved up, energized within the last two or three months in the state of hawaii, the last time they were used was during the cold war. Do you believe and please say whatever youd like, sir, but do you believe that the inefficiencies that have come out today, in our system, gives north korea potential intel about how we operate that may not be to our advantage here . Yeah, the North Koreans are watching this and certainly making judgments about our abilities to protect our citizens, our ability to react to their throeat to our nation, the entire globe. Im old enough to remember when we used to get underneath our desks in school with the radar drills. I am too, sir. And now im watching your reporting and some of the video youre showing are people placing children down man holes. So it was a terrible thing that happened in hawaii, but, yes, you are absolutely right. The North Koreans are watching this. Im sure theyre probably gloating over what happened today, and this doesnt help us in our efforts to protect ourselves from our enemies. I think what also should be assessed, though, is, what was the reactions . Was the emergency people on the ground in hawaii, what efforts were they taking, what were they doing, once they thought the threat was real, because thats another thing we want to judge to make sure that if this was in fact real, did we do the proper things in protecting the citizens there . Those are the questions that youre going to be asking february 6th, if my memory serves me right, when youll be addressing this. Appreciate your expertise here, dan donovan from new york. Thank you. Good to be with you. Thank you. Nbc News Pentagon correspondent hans nichols joins us now and hes been watching this story all throughout the afternoon here, all morning there local time in hawaii. And hans, as youve been watching along with us, we now see the administrator from Hawaii Emergency Management Administration saying, it was my fault. Of course hes taking full responsibility of whatever happened. What else have we learned in the last hour . Weve learned theres been a short review and the secretary of defense has been fully briefed. They have confidence in the systems, the Warning Systems that are in place on the dod side. Thats according to a military official. When you look at what the Defense Department does on an actual launch lets be clear, this was a false alarm, but on an actual Ballistic Missile, they have to make a decision within minutes on whether or not theyre going to activate any number of antimissile systems out there and try to knock it down. Secretary mattis has told me, they usually make that determination, which direction the missile is headed in, they deem it not to be a threat. Again, this is done in minutes, under five minutes. And in the past, they have yet to activate Ballistic Missile defense, their intercepts, an aegis system or something thats landbased. They never give us a readout on why they decide not to shoot down a missile. But the groundbased intercepts, from alaska and california, dont have a high success rate. Theyre basically batting about 50 , which is not the kind of success rate you want to have when you have potential incoming missiles. Thats part of the reason, richard, why you saw President Trump ask for an additional 4 billion in an end of year shortterm budget request and he did get that additional money. Hans, if anybody knows, you do, there at the pentagon, any word, any discussion about any mobilization, discussion of mobilization based on what happened in hawaii, either from the tip of the spear in guam, or as you were just discussing, there in california, the west coast and alaska . No, not at all. And ill tell you why. Because their systems didnt detect anything. For there to be mobilizations, and they trust their systems. They have a great deal of confidence. Remember, theyre looking at missile in its boost phase, its initial minutes, as it throttles towards the atmosphere. They make a determination where its headed in the initial minutes. They didnt see anything here because its a false alarm. Theyre saying check with everyone in hawaii, check with state and local officials, its not a pentagon matter. And they have utter confidence in their systems. Thanks so much, hans nichols, in washington. Thank you, sir. Lets go to Jacob Soboroff who is there in hawaii, was reporting on this very system over the last two days. And since the very beginning of this it was four hours ago, right, jacob, when this all began . You also saw, again, burn miyagi come out and you were speaking with him too. Thats right. I was in the office with the administrator of the Emergency Management agency of hawaii less than 24 hours ago, as he was explaining to me, this system, it went so badly wrong today, is supposed to actual work. To reiterate, the Governors Office has confirmed that this was the push of a wrong button by a human being who sits inside, basically in a control room, within a bunker, within diamond head crater here, on the island of oahu, inside hawaiis Civil Defense. This is a system thats designed to basically notify Civil Defense, to tell hawaiians to take cover in the event of a detected Ballistic Missile launch from north korea or elsewhere. This was not triggered because of a notification from the u. S. Military. It was a human error. Yesterday inside that bunker, nbc news exclusively was given a look at how that system is supposed to operate and heres some of that footage right now, richard. Take a look. What happens here . Can you explain to me again what you were telling me before . Yeah, the call comes in from pay com, which is a secure line. Pacific command . Exactly. They notify our warning officers. The warning officers then have to make a decision rather quickly to do they have a check list on the side, and they go down the check list, but important is the decision to activate the statewide siren system. Reporter so the decision has to be made to activate the stayed wi statewide sirens. Pay com means Pacific Command. This was a shift basically a shift from one group of individuals to another, in a room thats manned 24 hours a day. Instead of pushing a button to test the system, they pushed the button to launch Text Messages out to the people across the state of hawaii. If the control room can look at some footage of the phone that the call is supposed to come in on, again, thats not what happened today. We saw people running in the user generated footage. Its extraordinary to to see and hear miyagi take responsibility for it. He wasnt the one who pushed the button, but its his administration that handles that. We always said, youre always in the right place at the right time. Here you were there at paccom, based on what has happened today. In your discussions as we look at this video, this is exclusive video that you got a hold for us, did they discuss how they handle false alarms like this, or mistakes like this . Well, i mean, the bottom line this, is this is not supposed to happen. To have a text message that says, this is not a drill. Theres a detected incoming Ballistic Missile, is just an absolute worst case scenario, made much morse by the fact that you had highlighted with senator schatz from hawaii, that it took 38 minutes, twice the amount of time that it would take for an actual rocket to get here, for a correction to go out to say that was a false alarm. Think about the school kids that had to run and take cover, the families, people that were praying in their bath tubs. The senator himself said that hes not willing to make the judgment call quite yet, but theres a big question here, should that button remain in the hands of hawaii civilian defense . Should they be the ones to alert the people of hawaii, or should it be in the hands of of the United States military, which obviously did not sound the alarm today, richard. Jacob soboroff in hawaii, not too far away from Pacific Command. He was describing well have him back later and have more exclusive video from the command center for us. Jacob, thanks so much. He was asking the question, who should be in charge of these Emergency Alerts . Well get a sense potentially of that. What does the white house think . What does the president think after he was briefed on this . Well get a potential idea on that when we go to Kelly Odonnell after this. Up to a gillette shave. And at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. Today were bringing you americas number one shave at lower prices every day. Putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. As one of those workers, im proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. Gillette the best a man can get. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. When we got the alarm, we were actually terrified. We were on the 36th floor of our hotel. And we didnt know what to do. We were kinda frantic. I just started running. We went to this other place, a concrete building. People were just running on the street, all desperate. And then this, video of those reacting. Children getting into man holes, doing exactly what an Emergency Alert said to do. Seek immediate shelter. This at the university of hawaii, this video in to msnbc within the last hour, as we see at around 8 00 local time, folks running. 8 05 a. M. Is when they got the warning and they only had, if a missile indeed was launched, 20 minutes. But at the end, it turned out to be human error. There was no missile threat. The question, what was the reaction . And the white house getting briefed on it. The president being briefed on it. Lets go to nbcs Kelly Odonnell with some of the latest. Did the system work, who was asked before they put out this Emergency Alert, and how should it work . Reporter well, there will be an afteraction report, and it seems at this point, that the governor of hawaii level, hes taking steps to review the procedures. The white house has told us, this was a statecontrolled issue, meaning there was not a direct involvement of the federal government. Perhaps thats why we have not heard from the president yet, who, President Trump frequently says the number one issue is the security of the American People. And as you explained, there was no actual threat today, but there was a perceived and feared threat for an interval of time when people got this alert and before they were assured that everything was okay. Weve not heard from the president , he has tweeted in the last few minutes about the book that got a lot of attention, that portrayed him in an unflattering light and using his fake news attack. So the president is in front of his twitter feed and is, you know, able to communicate directly to the American People, which is what he said he likes to do with his twitter feed. But weve not heard any comment from him about the concerns the hawaiian people felt today, what went wrong and so forth. Based on what weve learned from white house officials who at first directed us on the department of defense, because the Pacific Command is in hawaii, and theyre in sort of the first line of organization militarily had there been an actual threat from north korea, for example. So the president visited paccomin november, went through the procedures. Again, this appeared to be an error at a state level, so the federal government may not have direct knowledge of what to say at this point. The white house may not want to get involved until further information is available about what went wrong and how it could be prevented. But it is notable that beyond telling us that the president was briefed, he was at the golf course, as he so often is on weekends when e