By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton| NoisyRoom.net The citizens of Hawaii are having an interesting day today. And not by choice. Across Hawaii, residents got an ominous message on their phones\u2019 Emergency Alert System (EAS) telling them to \u201cseek immediate shelter\u201d from a \u201cballistic missile threat.\u201d 38 minutes of sheer<\/b>
\nThe citizens of Hawaii are having an interesting day today. And not by choice. Across Hawaii, residents got an ominous message on their phones\u2019 Emergency Alert System (EAS) telling them to \u201cseek immediate shelter\u201d from a \u201cballistic missile threat.\u201d 38 minutes of sheer terror ensued where people dove for cover. The ones that heard about it that is. The EMS system that sends text messages to all cell phones, apparently including those there on vacation, didn\u2019t get the message to everyone. Looks like that system needs a bit more testing. A cynical person might wonder if it was on purpose. I\u2019ve heard them blaming a person pressing the wrong button on this. That\u2019s bull crap and it\u2019s not the way it works. Try again fellas.
Earlier Saturday, Hawaiian citizens reported receiving an emergency alert on their phone that stated: \u201cBALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.\u201d House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI, tweeted in regard to the alert: \u201cHAWAII \u2013 THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE.\u201d
Greg Gutfeld, of Fox News\u2019 \u201cThe Five\u201d and \u201cThe Greg Gutfeld Show,\u201d tweeted that his wife was at a hotel in Hawaii and called the situation \u201ctotal hysteria\/chaos.\u201d He added that families who were evacuating were told to \u201cseek shelter. crying. panic.\u201d \u201cToday\u2019s alert was a false alarm,\u201d Senator Mazie Hirono wrote. \u201cAt a time of heightened tensions, we need to make sure all information released to the community is accurate. We need to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure it never happens again.\u201d
Multiple officials and government agencies quickly confirmed the message was a false alarm and the groveling and apologizing began. Meanwhile, it\u2019s been non-stop on the news for hours. White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters later implied the false warning stemmed from a state, rather than a federal, mishap. \u201cThe President has been briefed on the state of Hawaii\u2019s emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise,\u201d he said in a statement. That, I could believe.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Repoza confirmed a false alarm. Boy, I bet this just made the whole North Korea threat very real to the citizens of Hawaii. \u201cHawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Repoza said it was a false alarm and the agency is trying to determine what happened,\u201d the AP reports. I think they probably already know what happened. Either it was a mistake or they were hacked. Either way this is FUBAR. When I heard it, I wondered what the fresh hell was going on and who ordered an apocalypse for today.
The message, initially thought authentic, spread quickly on social media, prompting some panic, as Fox News reported Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) estimated over one million Hawaiians received the erroneous alert. The EAS protocol should only be available to government officials. You can bet people were kissing their collective asses goodbye before they found out, oopsie! False alarm! Hawaii is closest to North Korea and the threat of a nuclear tipped ballistic missile hitting them is very real. As I said before, 38 minutes passed before a follow-up EAS message was sent out retracting the warning. Which coincidentally, is the amount of time it would take for a missile to get from North Korea to Hawaii. Fun, huh?
In August, Business Insider quoted David Wright, a physicist with the anti-nuclear weapons group Union of Concerned Scientists, as estimating the total missile flight time at 37 minutes. Some early warning systems can sometimes detect pre-launch conditions, like rising heat at missile silos indicating the missile is being fueled, that can give longer warnings. I find this whole thing suspicious, but make no mistake\u2026 the threat of North Korea firing a missile at Hawaii is very real.
In November, the Hawaiian government reactivated cold war era missile warning sirens over concerns about North Korean threats. That move followed months of efforts by Hawaiian officials to develop contingency plans for dealing with a North Korean attack. Some of that planning apparently included \u201ca public information campaign.\u201d There\u2019s no way to know if today\u2019s mishap was part of those preparations. And I wonder whose head is going to roll over this.<\/p>\n