We’re not ready.
Saturday morning I woke up at five to catch the bus to work, since I started at eight. Less than ten minutes after I clocked in, my girlfriend sent me a screenshot of the infamous mass text: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” I hadn’t gotten the message on my phone, probably because the state of Hawaii knows they can’t scare me with anti-Trump propaganda.
I wasn’t worried. I trust my president and my military. I didn’t think for one second that Our President Trump would let us get attacked. As often as the news lies about him and misconstrues what he says and does, every move he makes is in OUR best interest; he really does put America first, unlike our past several presidents. But I wanted to ensure my coworkers felt safe and were all prepared, just in case the worst possibility happened.
Right after she sent the text, she called me to make sure I got it. I was standing in the parking lot where I worked: a car dealership in Waipahu, not five miles Northwest of Pearl Harbor and around the same distance South of Wheeler Army Airfield in Wahiawa, two of the three most likely targets for an attack. My coworkers were also all on their phones talking to their families, looking confused and scared.
I told her to tape up the window to our bedroom like we do for hurricanes (an annual event in Hawaii, we tape up our windows to keep the glass more or less intact during high winds, so they don’t blast apart and rip through our houses) and hide with the pets against the wall under a thick blanket. Then I made everyone who was standing around the parking lot with me walk to the safest area close by, which was a concrete hallway between the parking lot and the garage bay where the mechanics work. We all talked about what to do in a missile attack: stay away from glass, stay away from cars, find someplace secure, indoors. Vehicles are dangerous since they have glass and small parts, thin metal that can bend and rip you apart, and they’re not bolted to the ground. A parking lot is a mine field during a bomb.
Huddled together in the tight concrete hallway, we theorized about whether or not there really was a missile coming. We talked about where our families were, if they’d be safe. In the background, the new missile siren blared.
My boss locked up and told people they could either seek shelter at the big warehouse down the road or go home. I took the time to clock out and gather my things. My coworker invited me to his house, since I ride the bus and the busses probably weren’t running anyway; if anything, I wouldn’t have to wait at a bus stop for 30 minutes. Later I found out the busses were kicking riders off at the nearest bus stops and heading straight back to their depots, which could be a death sentence to passengers.
A lady I work with was crying. People were having anxiety attacks. My friend took me to his house in the Palisades, a neighborhood up in the mountains above Pearl City, which was about a 10 minute drive. Later I learned that, had there been a real bomb, we would’ve vaporized on the road.
When we got there, we watched the news with his family and their little fluffy dog. I wondered out loud how long it would take a missile from North Korea to reach us; his father-in-law answered without looking away from the TV. “72 minutes,” he said with confidence. Turns out he was wrong; it would only take 20.
We were relieved to hear that it was a false alarm. It had been 38 minutes from the time the alert was sent out until the new text came to announce that there was no missile. I never got either text. The only text I got was my boss telling us all to return to work; although I told everyone to wait it out just in case, since oftentimes there are drills or some sort of false alarm before false flags, and it would be a good habit to instill in people to be more cautious.
We were thinking there’d be lawsuits. We figured some people might have had heart attacks, which actually did happen. There was at least one heart attack death that I know of. His father-in-law was worried that people might’ve shot themselves to avoid the terror of death by radiation, fire, and debris. These were all things I didn’t think of, since I was so sure of our safety.
Some things that actually happened during those 38 minutes—again, to reiterate, I was never sent a notification, so if I were alone somewhere I’d never know to take shelter if a missile really did come—people were running red lights, there were wrecks, 911 had to turn down calls because their lines were flooded, stores closed and kicked out customers, busses kicked riders off where they were (and some bus stops are in the middle of nowhere, some miles between any shelter). People were also doing end-of-the-world things, like letting their kids drink or expressing their love to their crush, calling their loved ones to tell them goodbye. In fact, someone's probably writing a script right now about a person confessing their secret love to another during the panic.
But the main thing that really got me was just how unprepared we are. I’ve known since the first day I moved here that people in Hawaii generally aren’t the most… self-reliant, shall we say. Being a blue state, people are more inclined to expect government help, rather than take matters into their own hands to protect themselves. That’s why it’s illegal to carry guns here, or to even own a bulletproof vest.
The downside of this is that people really don't know what to do in an emergency scenario like this one. They would rather drive 20 minutes to see their families than to wait it out in the nearest safe place and see their loved ones after. What's more preferable; to survive in a separate place than your family and reunite later, or to die trying to get to them? The road is the WORST place to be when a bomb goes off! Like I said before, cars aren't bolted down, they have loose parts made from metal and glass and toxic fluids, and it's outside.
It takes a missile 20 minutes to fly from North Korea to Hawaii. At best, it takes five minutes for us to notice it, so we have 15 minutes until impact from the point of warning; assuming the warning comes instantly. People here didn't even know how much time they had, or where to go. There were plenty of people who thought it would take a missile two hours to reach us! I'm going to go over what should've happened, how we can better prepare ourselves, and then a few theories on WHY it happened.
The first changes necessary for ensuring the maximum amount of people survive a bomb are at the state level. The next time there's a warning, the text should actually tell us what our window of time is. The text should've specified, "You have 15 minutes until impact." This is a simple change. That way people know to seek shelter immediately instead of driving across town to grab their kids from school or go home to their families. They acted as if they had an hour to get to safety, but really they would've had maybe 10 minutes. Knowing how much time you have affects your choices. I knew when my girlfriend called me that there'd be no time for her to catch the bus anywhere, so I told her to stay home. Our house is protected by a series of mountains from where the targets are.
Public parks, also, could have cement buildings that are underground or partially underground for people to hide. The mountain ranges that take up most of the island are unused, why not tunnel inside them to build shelters? They could build them without even harming the precious view. Also, I'm not one for socialized healthcare, but what if the government were to issue out hazmat suits for the citizens of high-risk (of nuclear attack) locations? These changes are on the government, but the majority of changes need to happen from civilians.
Businesses, public services, and people here need to change. For example, the bus kicking people off en masse. Sure, being on a bus you're not tied down, you're surrounded by big glass windows, and you're on the open road; but the busses could have at least taken the riders to the nearest shelter. Public schools and libraries are designated bomb shelters here, and they took in people seeking safety. If a bus dropped off people in a place where they would die instead of taking them to the nearest shelter where they could live, there could be a huge lawsuit on their hands for being responsible for those deaths. The same applies for Walmart, Costco, and Sam's Club. At least two of those places shut their doors and kicked everyone out, including their own employees. People were hiding their kids in sewers because Walmart turned them down. If a real bomb had dropped, then by the time they'd shut everything down, gotten the last customer out, and locked their doors, it'd be too late. Plus, if a lot of customers were kicked out of Walmart, or Sam's Club, a bomb hit and those customers died but Sam's Club or Walmart survived, there'd be a class action lawsuit against the corporations. The better option would be to close their doors, announce on the intercom for everyone to please calmly head to the center of the store (or wherever the safest part of the building is) and wait it out. Any stealing would far outweigh the cost of a lawsuit later. Businesses that didn't have good hiding places should've directed customers and employees to the nearest shelter. And all buildings that qualify, like Sam's Club and Walmart, should be deemed bomb shelters, and maybe given a tax write-off for it. Or, the whole market incentive to avoid lawsuits, whatever your flavor.
The upside to this is the ridiculous potential profit for Hawaiian businesses. Home improvement companies could make a killing with installing bomb shelters at people’s homes. They could range from basic storage bunkers to self-sustained luxury shelters, stocked with hazmat suits, rations, etc. Energy companies like solar, wind, and coal could build kits for these shelters. Water companies could install all-new plumbing in them. Someone could make “bomb bags", some tough material backpack with emergency gear like a gas mask, hazmat suit, condensed protein bars, bulletproof vests (illegal in HI, but there could be exceptions), collapsible trench shovels, hatchets, first-aid gear, etc. The effects of bunkers going widespread could be tremendous; it could establish permanent underground cities free of bomb threats like in SPOILER ALERT Hunger Games, where the Capital stopped bombing District 13 because it wasn’t effective. And the cities could be something simple, like a network of underground tunnels between shelters, or to a central one. Hell, there could even be an app for sharing bomb shelters, or finding the nearest one. If we had this, then North Korea’s threats wouldn't be so effective, at least not to civilians.
Pearl Harbor happened almost 80 years ago. It's about time Hawaii built more bomb shelters, both privately and publicly. It's ridiculous not to.
So why was the alert sent? The official story is that some employee made a mistake, that during a shift change someone pressed the wrong button. That the test was only meant to be sent out amongst the units running it, not half the state. I don't buy that.
My first thought when my girlfriend called me was that it really WAS a drill disguised as a real bomb, so people would practice what to do for real. People don’t react to drills properly like they would in a real situation. Look at the episode of The Office where they had a fire drill disguised as a real fire- there’s a Dwight at the DOD. People in Hawaii generally like to go to the beach and relax. If they know something is a drill, they won't let it interfere with their plans. But if they think it's real, they'll see how they actually handle themselves when they believe a bomb is coming. I also believe it was initiated for the state to observe the reaction of the people here, so they'd know how to handle us.
Although I could see how there'd be a possibility for an accident. It's Pascal's Wager: better to set the alarm and it's fake, than to not set it and it's real. I doubt there's too many fail-safes for the alert button, because a 20 minute flight time and a minimum of five minutes for us to detect it, leaves us with a maximum potential of 15 minutes at best (I'd honestly give it 10, since there's no way to know how long it'd take for those who detect it to tell those who send out the alert, and for the alert to send to all the recipients) to get to safety. I'd rather the alert button guy have an itchy button hand than a timid one. Failsafes belong with those in charge of sending bombs, not with those who warn populations against them.
There was once a false alarm during the Cold War with Russia. A Russian man, Stanislav Petrov, was one of the two men assigned the responsibility of sending a retaliatory nuclear bomb to the US. When they had a false alarm that the US had sent a nuke to Russia, he hesitated; he didn't turn the key. He is now known as the man who single-handedly saved the world from nuclear war. In some occupations, hesitation is a virtue.
I've heard some other theories, of course. It could've been a disgruntled employee. It could've just been old equipment, or someone really just made a mistake; wouldn't be the first time someone in the military made one. It could've been a hack; wouldn't be the first time for that, either.
Of course there are more unsettling theories. It's possible that North Korea really DID shoot a missile at us, but it failed mid-flight. Again, that wouldn't be a first. It could've been shot down by an advanced plane of ours that the military doesn't want us to know about yet, like the TR-3B. And if they did shoot it down, they might deny it since they aren't ready to go to war yet for some reason, and admitting that we were shot at would inevitably lead to war. People in Hawaii would freak out if they knew a missile was shot at us, even if our military stopped it.
And why would North Korea shoot at us now, right after their peace talks with South Korea? It seems an odd move for them, since we are allies with South Korea. "We'll befriend you, but we're also going to kill those guys who have protected you from us since the 50s," is kind of a mixed message. They did just shoot one over Japan, but that was most likely as a show of force. If they shot one towards us, it'd probably be just to show us that they can. The missiles might not even have warheads; if North Korea pretends to have entire cities where it doesn't, then who's to say they don't pretend to have warheads where they don't?
But we do know North Korea has nukes, because the US gave them nukes. And other countries gave them nukes. And we all gave them money.
The reason North Korea hates Trump so much is that, unlike other countries and US presidents in the past, he refuses to give them even the lint from his pocket. He understands the most basic rule of war: YOU DON'T ARM YOUR ENEMY. Trump can either continue appeasing our unstable enemy, making them stronger and allowing them to become an even bigger threat, or he can stand up to them the way previous presidents weren't able to do.
Imagine you're the new kid at school, and there's a bully on the playground who runs around threatening all the other kids. Everyone gives him money, and some even give him weapons. What do you do? Do you also give him money and weapons, or do you threaten him back? Well if you're bigger and stronger than he is, you don't back down from him or give in to his demands. Trump is that new kid. He's not just making America great again, but he's making the whole world great. By standing up to North Korea, he stands up for everyone, even those poor souls in North Korea.
And hey, if you don't see the logic in that, chew on this: Trump owns stake in several properties in Waikiki, namely hotels. If you don’t think he’s a good president, at least understand that he won’t let his own properties get destroyed. As Thomas Sowell said, "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." If Trump is wrong and gets us bombed, he loses millions of dollars. Previous presidents didn't have that problem. Why did Bush allow 9-11-01 to happen? Well, did he own any property in New York? I think that if Trump were president then, he might've looked at our foreign policy and defense systems and think, "Gee, I should make sure I don't get any of my hotels bombed."
Trump isn't the type to partake in a false flag attack either. He's too honest; in fact, that's why he's so unpopular. He will boldly declare what others are too timid to subtly imply.
I really hope there are no lawsuits over this. I'd hate for there to be any future hesitation in the minds of those responsible with warning us about an attack. 15 minutes to get to safety is a lot better than 10. I think Trump is doing the right thing, being hard on North Korea. I think Hawaii is safe. Trump will make sure America is protected. I trust his judgment and I trust our armed forces. I don't want nuclear war with North Korea. Nukes should be owned as a deterrent, but not used. Hawaii needs to make some changes though, just in case Oprah wins in 2020. If that happens, we'll need a bomb shelter in every backyard.
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