What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived(newyorker.com)
newyorker.com
What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived
https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/what-it-felt-like-in-hawaii-when-warning-of-an-in-bound-missile-arrived?mbid=social_facebook
354 comments
I'm currently living in Japan. So obviously I have a plan for nuclear war.
First, I'm going to press send on the doomsday draft which is sitting in my e-mail.
Second, I'm going to go to youtube and play "We all go together" by Tom Leher.
Third, I got a bottle sitting in my desk that I'm going to pop open. Presumably I'll be in the office at the time so one final round with the coworkers.
The people in this article seem much more stressed and have not yet come to terms with the fact that sometimes life ends abruptly (nuclear or otherwise). If you actually get a nuclear war warning for real, my plan is just as good as any other. At least I didn't spend my last moments frantically running a bathtub and panicking.
First, I'm going to press send on the doomsday draft which is sitting in my e-mail.
Second, I'm going to go to youtube and play "We all go together" by Tom Leher.
Third, I got a bottle sitting in my desk that I'm going to pop open. Presumably I'll be in the office at the time so one final round with the coworkers.
The people in this article seem much more stressed and have not yet come to terms with the fact that sometimes life ends abruptly (nuclear or otherwise). If you actually get a nuclear war warning for real, my plan is just as good as any other. At least I didn't spend my last moments frantically running a bathtub and panicking.
Nearly forty minutes passed before a second message went out: “There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii.
...“It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the changeover of a shift, and an employee pushed the wrong button.”
I've seen some shitty Admin Panels, but somebody "pushed the wrong button" and an end-of-your-world false alarm was going off for 40 minutes?! WTF?
...“It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the changeover of a shift, and an employee pushed the wrong button.”
I've seen some shitty Admin Panels, but somebody "pushed the wrong button" and an end-of-your-world false alarm was going off for 40 minutes?! WTF?
I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up".
If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, especially Seattle, Vancouver, SF/LA, NYC, Washington DC, and Boston.
Fun NYC fact: the city is littered with fallout shelters: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Zm18xuBxp8kSysodfr...
If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, especially Seattle, Vancouver, SF/LA, NYC, Washington DC, and Boston.
Fun NYC fact: the city is littered with fallout shelters: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Zm18xuBxp8kSysodfr...
A good piece of perspective on this -- it's what many civilians feel day in day out in places like Pakistan when killer drones are flying over.
It’s interesting how people (anecdotally) don’t seem to have any plan for a nuclear attack, as opposed to, say, an earthquake or a fire.
I think there’s a stigma around even considering the possibility. However, it makes sense to at least talk with your family about what you would all do.
According to what I’ve read on the gov sites, it’s very survivable for a lot of people if you take key steps: surround yourself with as much building as you can (the middle floor of a high rise, or a basement three stories deep, etc.) Shower and dispose of any clothing that may be contaminated. Wait out the initial 24 to 48 hours until you’ve gotten official instructions (a hand crank radio is good to have.)
Generally, having a first aid kit, water, and food, is common sense for any potential outage of the infrastructure.
Sucks to consider the possibility, but worth having a conversation.
I think there’s a stigma around even considering the possibility. However, it makes sense to at least talk with your family about what you would all do.
According to what I’ve read on the gov sites, it’s very survivable for a lot of people if you take key steps: surround yourself with as much building as you can (the middle floor of a high rise, or a basement three stories deep, etc.) Shower and dispose of any clothing that may be contaminated. Wait out the initial 24 to 48 hours until you’ve gotten official instructions (a hand crank radio is good to have.)
Generally, having a first aid kit, water, and food, is common sense for any potential outage of the infrastructure.
Sucks to consider the possibility, but worth having a conversation.
I always struggle with news interviews that go along the lines of “So you’re entire family’s been killed. How do you feel?”.
I realise it’s easy to lose the impact on people’s lives behind a few words in a headline, and maybe I’m just too much of a cynic.
Pleasingly (to me) this article’s focus on feelings has some real meaning: namely the widespread panic that was caused by the false alarm.
(Like other folks in the previous HN thread I hope constructive lessons can be learned at all levels from this)
I realise it’s easy to lose the impact on people’s lives behind a few words in a headline, and maybe I’m just too much of a cynic.
Pleasingly (to me) this article’s focus on feelings has some real meaning: namely the widespread panic that was caused by the false alarm.
(Like other folks in the previous HN thread I hope constructive lessons can be learned at all levels from this)
> and an employee pushed the wrong button
I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button.
In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely will not be an actual post-mortem on the incident
I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button.
In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely will not be an actual post-mortem on the incident
Anyone got data (Heartrate etc.) from Apple Watches / Fitbit / Other Tracking devices?
Went through two major disasters. The most critical thing is to have a plan. Make everyone in your household aware of the plan. Then execute it, practice once a year if you can. Execution during the disaster helps distract you from the emotional turmoil.
Must be a terrible thing, if anything good can come out of this I hope it alerts people to the horrors of nuclear war. I am puzzled by why we speak so much about global warming but almost nobody talks about nuclear war.
Global warming is not remotely as dangerous as nuclear war. Sure it will make crops fails some places, cause water shortage for some millions, force people to move off the coast etc. But it will not kill billions of people. Nuclear war could do that.
As long as the US and Russia stockpile huge quantities of nuclear weapons the whole world is in jeopardy. The number of times nuclear war has almost gotten triggered due to mistakes like this one in Hawaii is scary to think of.
How many human errors or hardware/software failures need to happen before one day, an actual launch of nuclear missiles happen by default?
These weapons are far too dangerous to stockpile in such huge quantities. There should be a push to reduce the stockpile to something like 20-30 missiles.
It isn't hard to imagine a president in the style of Donald Trump, acting irrational and making a rash and stupid mistake which puts the world on fire.
Global warming is not remotely as dangerous as nuclear war. Sure it will make crops fails some places, cause water shortage for some millions, force people to move off the coast etc. But it will not kill billions of people. Nuclear war could do that.
As long as the US and Russia stockpile huge quantities of nuclear weapons the whole world is in jeopardy. The number of times nuclear war has almost gotten triggered due to mistakes like this one in Hawaii is scary to think of.
How many human errors or hardware/software failures need to happen before one day, an actual launch of nuclear missiles happen by default?
These weapons are far too dangerous to stockpile in such huge quantities. There should be a push to reduce the stockpile to something like 20-30 missiles.
It isn't hard to imagine a president in the style of Donald Trump, acting irrational and making a rash and stupid mistake which puts the world on fire.
During the Cold War in Poland we had no nuclear shelters only huge stockpiles of Lugol's iodine, which is said to be blocking intake of radioactive isotopes. It came handy after the Chernobyl.
Stupid question: why would you fill up your bathtub?
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You know how people born before 1985 felt when there was the ever present global thermonuclear war threat. We used to practice duck-and-cover in grade school. Woulnt help if very near a bomb explosion, but a little helpful from distant blasts.
Plus there were near misses of a launch in 1962 and 1983 on news. Plus several other secreat incidents revealed years later.
Contributed to hippie malaise that boober parents were fucking up the world.
AskReddit is really good for these kind of questions. There's a large thread going on right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7q6gys/reddit_me...
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I'm amazed this isn't being considered a bigger deal - I would expect the government to announce a major inquiry into how this happened and what to do to prevent it ever happening again, and I would expect heads to roll.
We sat next to a water tank on the side opposite of Honolulu. No other options. A year ago if we had gotten the same alert it would have just been wtf instead of terror. Hacker angle: we need different levels of emergency alerts. People turn them off because they don't want yet another irrelevant flood warning for some place 20 miles from them or an Amber alert at 3 am. In this particular case the lucky ones had them turned off. 38 minutes to send out correction. Just sayin
This should give everyone serious pause. If this false alarm had been sent by NORAD (it has happened before, read Command and Control), it's very likely that several million people in both Koreas, Japan and possibly the US would be char-grilled nuclear krispies right now. There needs to be a serious re-evaluation of our alert systems and launch on warning posture.
How close did we get to nuking them “back”?
I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw PTSD.
Technical Support will come riding through the apocalyptic wasteland on a technical, robbing those who for years refused to read the manuals.
Any study/articles on how the boundary of starting a nuclear war and being the first one to launch a missile is much lower after that incident?
Thanks for this, when I heard about the announcement my mind just went blank and I'm nowhere near Hawaii!
3 words: Software alert fatigue.
I’m waiting for the Colbert interview with the man of the moment
Now let's think about the feeling of people in other countries when be attacked by US missiles.
I think it's safe to assume the 100,000+ Iraqi civilians killed in the conflict in Iraq received no such warning. It's shameful how completely unaware most Americans are of the terror their MIC imposes on others.
Ironically, this incident in HI will feed the collective fears and the wrath of the MIC will extend further still. The opportunity to question the status quo will be lost.
Ironically, this incident in HI will feed the collective fears and the wrath of the MIC will extend further still. The opportunity to question the status quo will be lost.
I for one am convinced this is all part of a fear-mongering tactic of the US army aimed at psychologically pushing US citizen into supporting another war (crime). Unfortunately, Americans are all to easy to scare and the probability that they will in panic commit the most unspeakable of all war crimes (which they have already committed twice in the past) is much too high. The truth is NK couldn't shoot a missile at the US even if they wanted to.
The four of us were in the car on the road at ~8:09 and inside the local LDS (Mormon) Church 0.9 miles away at 8:12am. The church building is the nearest concrete structure with sealed windows and interior rooms that I knew I could gain access to. Unfortunately it doesn't have a basement, but very few structures in Hawaii do.
Thankfully, the doors were already open as there was a family inside doing some cleaning. We were the first to arrive and at least a dozen other families showed in the next 10 minutes. We all hunkered in the gym, some crying, some praying, most just in shock. The first glimmer of hope came when I read the first report of the it being a false alarm on Twitter at around 8:23am.
The whole incident was absolutely terrifying and I'm very upset that it even happened. But, we learned some valuable lessons and I'm satisfied with how my family responded to the incident. Overall, my plan was good and was executed about as flawlessly as possible. I realize we need to add a "bug-out bag" of essential items (e.g. medications, cell phone charger, hand-crank radio) that we can grab as we head out.
It most definitely helped that I had considered this scenario before and knew exactly what steps I would take. The one good takeaway is that this event has sparked many similar conversations state-wide (and beyond) of what to do in these situations. Here's hoping these plans never have to be executed again...