Cataluna: Wrong button, right response

Anybody still worked up over the big siren mistake two days ago? Not so much, yeah? Maybe your blood pressure shot up- Wednesday when that eerie warning wailed through the humid afternoon air, but then the police chief immediately said sorry and everyone could exhale, make jokes about button-pushing government workers and get back to whatever they were doing before being interrupted by the sound of impending doom.

Anybody still worked up over the false missile alert from January 2018?

Maybe you thought that was far in the rearview mirror, but for many, Wednesday’s mistake brought it all back.

Did your heart start to beat a little faster when the sirens started? Was it because you thought there was a super-fast tidal wave heading this way that somehow didn’t make it onto Twitter? Or was it because you still have PTSD from HI-EMA’s big, bad boo-boo? Those first few seconds, those first few notes as the sound rose up, that part of your brain that serves as a sentinel going, “Wait, it’s not Monday. Wait, it’s not raining. Wait, did I miss something? Wait, where’s the family?” … If any of that cold fear crept in, it dissipated fairly quickly before it could grow roots and lead to deep resentment.

Credit Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard for stepping up early and earnestly and just taking responsibility and apologizing unequivocally. Not a news conference hours later. Not speaking from a script or hitting previously agreed-upon talking points, but unrehearsed phone calls to the media saying, “I’m so sorry.” And “I just want to apologize to the public” and “We need to do better.”

What Ballard did was leadership — an old-school kind of leadership in a volatile political climate that somehow would have us believe that admitting a mistake is showing weakness. It is not. It’s the most honorable, most useful kind of strength. Having a leader immediately take full responsibility for a very public gaffe does so much to assuage the initial sting. It’s amazing how raising a hand right away and saying, “Our bad. So sorry,” refocuses the discussion on more proactive means of prevention rather than allowing anger to build over why no one is being forthcoming about what happened.

It goes without saying, though I’ll say it here for emphasis, that two big false alarms are more than enough for this town. Really, one was enough. Everybody who has access to one of those Buttons of Doom should be calling an all-hands meeting right this very now, if they haven’t already, to make sure that every possible slip has been considered and prevented. Make sure nobody can spill coffee on the console. Make sure nobody can whack the button with their butt while they’re side-stepping out of the chair to go to the break room. Boy Who Cried Wolf and all that. If this happens again, the public might stop believing that the real one is real; then the whole system is useless.