At 8:07 on the morning of January 13, the Hawaiian Islands received a singular notification on their cell phones:
They heard this broadcast in their cars and homes: “If you are outdoors, seek immediate shelter in a building. Remain indoors well away from windows. If you are driving, pull safely to the side of the road and seek shelter in a nearby building or lie on the floor. We will announce when the threat has ended.”
A North Korean nuclear missile was aimed on the Hawaiian Islands.
The scene that unfolded looked and felt like a Cold War movie. Residents and tourists alike ran from buildings to find shelter outside. Parents pulled over their cars to stash their children in man holes and storm drains. Everyone else was left to duck, cover, and brace for impact. Evacuations were issued to golf spectators, 9-1-1 was overwhelmed by calls. Wireless services were jammed and those affected could not reach family or loved ones to say goodbye. Even civil defense could not field the number of calls from frightened people wanting more information. To many it seemed that the 2017 Twitter warfare between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un was about to hit home, all too literally.
Amidst this pandemonium and panic, there was one more problem yet to be addressed: It was a false alarm…. an accidental emergency alert sent by someone pushing the wrong button during a shift change.
Thirty-eight minutes after the alert was issued, it was revoked. But those who had spent those minutes in fear were less than relieved by the false alarm. Hawaiians, Americans, and many others were angry and frustrated by official oversight, how long it took to revoke, and how it could have happened at all. Outrage spread throughout social media and news outlets, over radio waves and television broadcasts; by the end of the day Sunday, a Wikipedia page filled with details was ready to go.
While an inbound nuclear missile is scary enough, it is arguably more terrifying in Hawaii and other U.S. holdings in the Pacific. Hawaiians have been undergoing nuclear threat emergency drills since the United States’ frosty relationship with North Korea began to escalate into the hot zone. As Americans on the continent were despairing that political leaders could be so careless with words, those living throughout the Pacific have been bracing for the very announcements that came across their phones.
Throughout the week, Hawaiian’s emergency officials and government have altered the alert system – two people have to sign off on an alert before it is broadcast to the public – and gone on full damage control. Hawaii’s senators and congress-people have commented – a majority via Twitter – criticizing the delay in issuing a false alarm. Officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) have insisted their systems never “indicated any sort of threat over Hawaii”. A White House spokesperson tried to play it off as part of state emergency exercise.
In all this fear and loathing, the simple truth that many islanders believed they were about to die has been glossed over. For many, this isn’t only a clerical error with widespread public ramifications. It wasn’t just another instance of governmental oversight that happened at exactly the wrong time. People believed they would not make it to safety; that world events had caused an attack and they had been abandoned to be the next ground zero.
Hopefully the remedies put in place will insure that the next false alarm won’t be an accident. However, it is very possible that the next emergency alert could be all too real.