My 2 Cents: False Alarm Sends Hawaii Residents Into Panic

I don't remember exactly how the headline read Saturday, but the gist of it was "Hawaiians panic after false missile warning".

I clicked on it and while waiting for it to come up, I tried to imagine my own reaction to receiving a warning about an incoming ballistic missile, even if the warning was cleared up after a moment or two.

That's what I figured happened in Hawaii, and the headline had blown it out of proportion to get clicks. But when I started seeing reporting that the warning had been sent out by Hawaii's Emergency Management System to a million islanders cellphones, TV and Radio stations, and it wasn't officially corrected for 38 minutes, I was dumbfounded.

Hawaiians had been told this summer if North Korea were to fire a nuke their way they might only have 15 or 20 minutes before it exploded above Honolulu. So, they were scrambling for any kind of shelter, thinking at any moment the sky is going to light up and they and their families will be incinerated.

How does it take 38 minutes to send out an “all clear” across the same channels you sent the warning out on?

They knew within a few minutes they'd made a mistake, politicians were tweeting and Facebooking it was a false warning. But I can imagine a good many people were focused on spending their presumed final moments with their loved ones, rather than checking social media for updates.

Sobering....

I'm Kelly Ogle and that's My 2 Cents.