Yesterday the world may have come closer than any of us want to admit to nuclear war. While Hawaii Emergency Management Agency was trying out a new system for the very first time, an employee pressed the wrong button. Thinking he was turning over control to the next shift, he sent out a nuclear alert instead, causing widespread panic in Hawaii.
For 38 terrifying minutes, many Hawaiians spent Saturday morning hunkered in bathtubs and basements waiting for a ballistic missile strike that never came.
911 networks were overwhelmed and some fired off frantic messages to loved ones on the mainland.
Hawaiian public officials called it a day they would never forget.
The panic ensued after the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency mistakenly sent out an alert that warned residents of an imminent ballistic missile strike and urged them to "seek immediate shelter."
"This is not a drill," the ominous, all-caps push alert blared on people’s phones.
The notice turned out to be a false alarm, but the ensuing panic quickly turned to anger and a demand for answers by Hawaiians, their politicians and even the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission about what happened. Why was the alert sent, and why did it take 38 minutes for the Hawaiian government to correct it?
Facing the outcry, Gov. David Ige and Hi-EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi first offered an apology and then some answers during an afternoon press conference.
"I deeply apologize for the trouble and heartbreak we caused today," Miyagi said. "This is my team. We made a mistake. We are going to process this and study this to make sure this doesn’t happen again."… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NBC News>
Mistakes happen. What concerns me most is not that it happened, but what happened next: nothing. Authorities knew almost instantly that it was a false alarm. The truth should have gone put on all the same networks immediately. A 38 minute delay is not just unconscionable. It could have been catastrophic.
What may have saved the world is that the alert went out just after 1:00 PM EST, and Donald "Button Go Boom-Boom" Trump has just teed off at Trump International Golf Course in FL. Now a mere nuclear alert just isn’t important enough to him to justify interrupting a golf game. By the time he was free to attend to the matter, it was already well known that it had been a mistake.
Now imagine Trump getting original alert in the White House from the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise. During that 38 minute delay, Trump could easily have launched nuclear strikes on North Korea, all the Muslim countries, all the "shithole" countries, and damn near everyone else, except Normay, Nambia, Binomo, and, of course, Russia. That was too close for comfort.
RESIST THE REPUBLICAN REICH!!
17 Responses to “False Alarm in Hawaii”
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Here’s an article about what living through it was actually like for a real family.
Joe Arpaio blamed it on Obama’s birth certificate, causing even Jeanine Pirro confusion. (Excuse me, I do realize she is ALWAYS confused, but this time even SHE realized she was.)
I have to give Governor Ige and Administrator Miyagi credit for accepting responsibility. So unlike Republicans.
What a terribly cute little devil you found yourself there, Joanne.
Oh my!!!
HERE is one account from two Canadian couples vacationing in Hawaii:
Their anger is well placed. What if Dinkie Donnie had been in the Oval Office and “pushed the button” for a nuclear response!? WWIII would ensue and all because of an unstable pResident “Shithole” sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.
Fortunately, CNN and other major news channels (including Faux Noise) did not know about the alert. Mind, in the case of CNN and other reputable news carriers (does not include Faux Noise), Dinkie Donnie calls them “fake news” and may not have acted on it from them, although I’m not making any bets on that!
Is it possible that the 38 minutes of response time between activation and cancellation was a result of contacting Washington for direction or at least further information?
That not withstanding, scary times and contemplations.
I wonder if there is any vodka left in Hawaii? (a little gallows humour)
“Don’t forget to close the windows!!”
How absolutely frightening, for those folks, and counting the minutes as they ticked by..!!!
I don’t know about the rest of you, and maybe I’m just paranoid, but I smell hackers.
I smell s**thole when I see Arpaio, even in a cartoon. It is a measure of its intense toxicity for Faux News to even give this clown a platform, but that’s what they are there for.
Except for the presence to Tiger Woods, I never found golf of any value, until now. this give a more immediate meaning to the idea that history is often driven by tiny incidents, this time a golf club in tiny hands, run by the tiniest of brains!
I guess this is one instance where we are fortunate that we have a president who would rather golf than try to do anything presidential. Knowing Trump and the people he has around him, they would have just screwed it up even more.
I imagine that when the report came in, his “handlers” looked at each other like deer caught in the headlights, shrugged, and said, Mr. President, you lie 2, I would suggest a 7-iron.
Jerry, I hadn’t thought of that, but you just might have figured it out.
Sad that I’m old enough to remember my Grade School “Duck & Cover” drills.
(Yeah – like THAT is going to do any good in a nuclear Holocaust …
(Basically that cute little turtle on the blackboard – along w/ the rest of us – are F\/cked!)
I remember them too! Useless as all get out.
I’m old enough, heaven knows – maybe too old (by the time of the Cuban missile crisis I was in college and duck and cover wasn’t done there). But I remember other things much better. I vividly remember the HUAC, McCarthy, and “permanent records.”
Nice to see you, Nameless. Hope things are as well as can be expected.
Welcome back, Nameless. I remember those too. They never told us whether it was real or drill, and the first few times, I was scared shitless.
You and yours have been the subject of much prayer around here. How’s your mom?
Of course the news went big in other countries, but strangely enough none of the news I saw (Netherlands, Australia, Britain) mentioned Drumpf or only by noting that Drumpf was briefed on the false alarm according to the White House. I can only speculate on the background of that: either other nations think so little of Drumpf and see him as incapable of handling any situation that needs quick thinking that they just assumed nobody had informed Drumpf of the “threat” until it was declared false alarm on Twitter only 10 minutes later, or other nations do not want to have their citizens losing more sleep over a possible nuclear war because Drumpf could react in unforeseen ways. Perhaps it was a combination of both.
The BBC – perhaps unknowingly, but I think very intentionally and sarcastically – did put in this little remark on golfers on Hawaii:
Meanwhile, PresiDUNCE Donald Chump was out golfing…what a lazy S.O.B. he has been we MOST elect a new, PROGRESSIVE Democratic MAJORITY this fall and get rid of these complacent, enabling CONservative Republicans! Then, in 2020 we must throw this lazy rich JERK out of the Oval Office!!!!!
Welcome back Jack! Amen!! Long time no see. Don’t be a stranger!
Thanks, hugs and amen to all.