“This Is Not [a] Drill.”
On Saturday, people across the state of Hawaii received an extremely disturbing alert on their cellphones and television screens.
The alert claimed there was a “ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii” and urged people to “take shelter”:
Just now here in #Hawaii pic.twitter.com/URuJPLFnYe
— David Santoro (@DavidSantoro1) January 13,2018
The alert said, “this is not a drill,” but after about 40 minutes, the United States Pacific Command tweeted it had “detected no ballistic missile threat” to Hawaii. The earlier message was a “false alarm” and was “sent in error.”
While it’s fortunate that no missile was headed for Hawaii, people unanimously called out the dangers of alerting people to a life-threatening situation without being certain it’s real.
Aside from the dangers that come from a mass amount of panicked people believing death was coming for them, residents may also be less likely to take alerts seriously in the future.
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss highlighted the dangers of this skepticism by sharing another alert that declared “this is not [a] drill”:
“Air Raid on Pearl Harbor…. This Is Not Drill” — December 7,1941: #NARA pic.twitter.com/8t0mD2W2jN
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 13,2018
On Dec. 7,1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and according to History.com, it resulted in the deaths of 2,400 Americans and an additional 1,000 were wounded.
