The FCC Homeland Security Bureau's preliminary investigation of Hawaii's accidental release of a ballistic missile alert found that the state did not have a plan for what to do if a false alarm was issued, or a plan to correct a false alarm.

The FCC bureau, in a report at the commission's Jan. 30 public meeting, said the alert was issued due to a miscommunication between the night shift and day shift of Hawaii's emergency management agency, exacerbated by a failure to quickly communicate that the alert was sent in error. A warning official said he mistook a drill for the real thing, though the FCC said it was unclear whether that was the case or whether it was inadvertently sent despite knowing it was a drill.

Related: FCC Investigating Missile False Alarm

While human error was the cause, the bureau also found that the software used to send the alert did not differentiate between a test and a live alarm, and allowed both to be triggered with the same credentials, with pre-prepared templates making it easy to launch the alert without having to sufficiently focus on the content.

FCC chair Ajit Pai, who said the only thing triggered in Hawaii was panic and outrage, both justified. He said he was most troubled by the state's failure to have proper safeguards to prevent human error from causing such a false alarm and that no plan was in place for dealing with one. He said that should be a lesson to all states to have both.

The commissioners were in agreement that changes were necessary, though commissioner Michael O'Rielly emphasized that communications providers did nothing wrong, pointing out that carriers got the message out, false or not, which was their role, and that the issue was with emergency officials and processes.

Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized that time is of the essence, and new and better practices for all stakeholders need to be put in place ASAP. She also invoked the current nuclear angst stemming from the North Korea threat and war of words between North Korea and the U.S., saying that residents of Hawaii, “like all of us, are aware of new vulnerabilities in the Pacific.”

In addition to the Hawaii report, the FCC meeting included a vote on a related issue: The commissioners unanimously approved an item to better geo-target wireless emergency alerts as part of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. "Recent events in California and Hawaii remind us of the urgency of improving WEA," commissioner Brendan Carr said.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, is among those in Congress calling for it to investigate the false alarm text alert that warned Hawaiians over the weekend of an incoming missile strike, claiming not to be a test.

FCC chair Ajit Pai has already launched an investigation, while signaling that the issue was the state's failure to have protections against such an error.

"Congress must investigate the false ballistic missile alarm in Hawaii. An unforgivable false alarm that took 38 minutes to correct," Schiff Tweeted.

Pai was clearly on the same page. "Federal, state, and local officials throughout the country need to work together to identify any vulnerabilities to false alerts and do what’s necessary to fix them.," he said. "We also must ensure that corrections are issued immediately in the event that a false alert does go out.”

There were online reports of children being placed in storm drains for shelter and residents ducking, covering and crying. There was also footage of people running down the street that evoked 1950's movies about irradiated insects and undersea creatures, but it was clearly no laughing matter. With the tensions high between the U.S. and North Korea over the latter's nuclear program, the false alarm clearly had the frightening ring (make that a claxon) of truth to many.