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Ballistic Missile Incoming to Hawaii (false alarm)

LesClaypool

LesClaypool

Ultimate Seminole Insider
Jan 12, 2004
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https://www.yahoo.com/gma/not-drill...-imminent-190106351--abc-news-topstories.html

This is crazy. Heads are going to roll, even if it is found out it was an honest mistake.


'This is not a drill': Hawaiians get false alert of missile attack due to worker's pushing 'wrong button'
Good Morning America • LUIS MARTINEZ and MORGAN WINSOR • 8 minutes ago
People in Hawaii woke up Saturday to emergency alerts sent to their mobile phones and broadcast on radio and TV warning of an imminent ballistic missile attack.

The alert turned out to be false and the result of human error.

But for the more than 30 minutes it took before a corrected message was broadcast, the alert caused panic around the state.
 
Some real estate investor paid for this to happen...manufactured buying opportunity
 
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I live the false sense of security that the government still peddles in face of nuclear war: “in coming ballistic missle, seek shelter” as if hiding in the closet will some how protect us from a nuclear blast. The warning should say: in coming ballistic missle, go do whatever you want to do.

I wonder how many people got a “we’ll we are all going to die soon” sympathy lay
 
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Fijimn said:
I live the false sense of security that the government still peddles in face of nuclear war: “in coming ballistic missle, seek shelter” as if hiding in the closet will some how protect us from a nuclear blast. The warning should say: in coming ballistic missle, go do whatever you want to do.

I wonder how many people got a “we’ll we are all going to die soon” sympathy lay
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Good thing it was a weekend, otherwise there'd have been a massive round of firings for viewing porn on the work computer.
 
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Fijimn said:
I live the false sense of security that the government still peddles in face of nuclear war: “in coming ballistic missle, seek shelter” as if hiding in the closet will some how protect us from a nuclear blast. The warning should say: in coming ballistic missle, go do whatever you want to do.

I wonder how many people got a “we’ll we are all going to die soon” sympathy lay
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For a massive attack, I agree, but for one or two low-yield missiles from NK seeking shelter is probably pretty good advice.
 
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You mean hiding under your desk with your arms protecting your head won't be enough?

Seriously, people said their last goodbye to their loved ones. I cannot even imagine.
 
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Fijimn said:
I live the false sense of security that the government still peddles in face of nuclear war: “in coming ballistic missle, seek shelter” as if hiding in the closet will some how protect us from a nuclear blast. The warning should say: in coming ballistic missle, go do whatever you want to do.
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Really bad advice.

In most nuke/dirty bomb situations you’re always better off sheltering in place. The vast majority of the radiation dissipates in a couple of days. You’re still gonna be in a bad place, but better than standing outside saying “screw it”.
 
I can't imagine getting that message and thinking I'm going to die for 34 minutes. There logically would be no reason for the average person to say "hey this might be a hoax".

It's shocking and a miracle no one went on a crime spree knowing they'd never get caught. Perhaps that's a testament to Hawaiians being more at peace with the world than us mainlanders. Had this happened in Colorado or Texas folks would be going on shooting sprees only to find out half an hour later that they'd be facing 200 consecutive life sentences.

Also--- I don't buy the "someone hit the wrong button" excuse. Like really, they had a prewritten message with specifics including "ballistic missile" in it? And no one noticed for 30 mins that THEIR OWN phone got an amber alert with this message, originating from their own office?!
This was absolutely intentional wrongdoing. I'm just glad DC was asleep when the message went out, else we might have invaded Iran or something.
 
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Hayduke GW said:
Really bad advice.

In most nuke/dirty bomb situations you’re always better off sheltering in place. The vast majority of the radiation dissipates in a couple of days. You’re still gonna be in a bad place, but better than standing outside saying “screw it”.
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Why do you think N Korea has a dirty bomb and not a fully capable hydrogen bomb?
 
Also--- I don't buy the "someone hit the wrong button" excuse. Like really, they had a prewritten message with specifics including "ballistic missile" in it?
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Yes, much more likely that the bureaucracy would instead rely on being able to draft, edit and approve a tailored response on the fly (no pun intended).
C'mon, man!

This was absolutely intentional wrongdoing. I'm just glad DC was asleep when the message went out, else we might have invaded Iran or something.
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NORAD/DoD aren't gathering their info from Hawaii's twitter account.
 
seminole97 said:
NORAD/DoD aren't gathering their info from Hawaii's twitter account.
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Not NORAD/DoD I'm concerned about, it's the guy who places more weight on briefings from twitter and cable news than his own defense department.

Btw, just have to note, you're an interesting guy. No matter what I post, I get a multi part disagreement from you. If I said it was dark outside right now, there seems to be a good chance you'd rebut that it's light somewhere on earth. No offense but do you have a beef with me or is this your style?
 
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seminole97 said:
No offense, but I don’t even recognize your handle. I do have a habit of responding to dumbassery, sometimes in detail.
This place is downright therapeutic.
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Ah my apologies for the dumbassery.

I'm sure you'll find reason to take issue with the apology, seeing as how in your world being argumentative is therapy. Must be lovely.
 
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My godfather lives out there. He was at a Karate studio with his grandkid.

He said all of a sudden people started freaking out and getting messages on the phones as word spread.

He said most people just cared about getting home to their families. Everyone was driving insane and running red lights. Pretty nuts for about 30 minutes.
 
I just don't get the massive uproar. So some idiot made a mistake and a bunch of people got upset for literally 1/2 an hour. While it shouldn't have happened and it should be fixed; I really don't think that we need a congressional investigation, a senate investigation and who knows how many other investigations. They probably need some money to upgrade their system; yet we will spend 10's of millions investigating. Instead of spending the millions on the fix. Whatever, I guess if it bleeds, scares or is sexy it sells. By the way before some meat head says you don't understand what it is like to think about, face, feel, or whatever about death; I have been IED, shot at, mortared and all kinds of other things. So it was a bad 1/2 hour get over it and stop the sensationalism
 
RangerNole said:
I just don't get the massive uproar. So some idiot made a mistake and a bunch of people got upset for literally 1/2 an hour. While it shouldn't have happened and it should be fixed; I really don't think that we need a congressional investigation, a senate investigation and who knows how many other investigations. They probably need some money to upgrade their system; yet we will spend 10's of millions investigating. Instead of spending the millions on the fix. Whatever, I guess if it bleeds, scares or is sexy it sells. By the way before some meat head says you don't understand what it is like to think about, face, feel, or whatever about death; I have been IED, shot at, mortared and all kinds of other things. So it was a bad 1/2 hour get over it and stop the sensationalism
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You really don't see the difference between willingly going into battle as a member of the armed forces and getting an official text message in the middle of the day that your world is ending in about 20 minutes?
 
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I get that a mistake was made. A rather large and regrettable mistake to be sure. What I don’t get is why it took 40 minutes to unmistake the mistake.
How hard would it be to alert local and social media that this was a false alarm.
The narrative from the local FEMA office that they didn’t have a false alarm template for broadcast seems pretty lame.
Bet they do now.
 
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Formerly Rockymtnole said:
You really don't see the difference between willingly going into battle as a member of the armed forces and getting an official text message in the middle of the day that your world is ending in about 20 minutes?
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Nope. It was a mistake and someone should be fired. However this situation doesn't require 10's of millions of dollars to be investigated; when some really simple questions can be asked and answered; problem solved. Instead a bunch of brainless morons are talking and talking, trying to find the message behind what really happened, was this on purpose, who can we blame, blah blah blah. C'mon man if our worse problem as a nation is an accidental message then we are in pretty good shape. I know most people don't think like me; but my goodness can't people just go man that was a crazy thing. Instead of "oh my gosh we need to find and spend all possible money, we need to talk about this forever, etc. You know what right now somebody who was homeless, hungry etc. is still in the same situation. Maybe we should worry about that.
 
Oclawaha said:
I get that a mistake was made. A rather large and regrettable mistake to be sure. What I don’t get is why it took 40 minutes to unmistake the mistake.
How hard would it be to alert local and social media that this was a false alarm.
The narrative from the local FEMA office that they didn’t have a false alarm template for broadcast seems pretty lame.
Bet they do now.
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You are absolutely correct. The problem/ issue is most people don't know that the requirements for disaster, etc is on the local and state government and they don't spend the money to plan. It works like this the state and local government spend the time and money on planning; then the Feds spend the money on providing the resources, which is mainly manpower. It is the same for technology/equipment. State and local write the requirements and then apply for grants etc. for the money. The problems at the state level when it come to emergency response is all about the state and local government. The issue is that it is really hard to try and spend the money for something that might happen; rather than something that is happening, like food issues, housing, education etc.
 
RangerNole said:
Nope. It was a mistake and someone should be fired. However this situation doesn't require 10's of millions of dollars to be investigated; when some really simple questions can be asked and answered; problem solved. Instead a bunch of brainless morons are talking and talking, trying to find the message behind what really happened, was this on purpose, who can we blame, blah blah blah. C'mon man if our worse problem as a nation is an accidental message then we are in pretty good shape. I know most people don't think like me; but my goodness can't people just go man that was a crazy thing. Instead of "oh my gosh we need to find and spend all possible money, we need to talk about this forever, etc. You know what right now somebody who was homeless, hungry etc. is still in the same situation. Maybe we should worry about that.
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WTF. Just don’t get how you see every person in the state closest to North Korea getting a text that a nuclear missile was heading their way as no big deal. An entire US state was plunged into fear and chaos. So yeah, we need to spend some money investigating that process and what happened because it could be used as a weapon. Imagine this message went to every person in say New York City in middle of work day. It could cause mass panic and deaths. Not to mention loss of an entire workday.
 
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noleclone2 said:
WTF. Just don’t get how you see every person in the state closest to North Korea getting a text that a nuclear missile was heading their way as no big deal. An entire US state was plunged into fear and chaos. So yeah, we need to spend some money investigating that process and what happened because it could be used as a weapon. Imagine this message went to every person in say New York City in middle of work day. It could cause mass panic and deaths. Not to mention loss of an entire workday.
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Please show me the text where it said Nuclear Missile. The text said ballistic missile. There is a difference; maybe you should do some research, instead of listening to media reports about things. Ballistic does not indicate Nuclear, it indicates how the missile is guided. Now I get that people hear that and freak; but they freaked about something they thought it was not what it really was.
 
RangerNole said:
Please show me the text where it said Nuclear Missile. The text said ballistic missile. There is a difference; maybe you should do some research, instead of listening to media reports about things. Ballistic does not indicate Nuclear, it indicates how the missile is guided. Now I get that people hear that and freak; but they freaked about something they thought it was not what it really

Your bias is affected your view of this situation. Parsing “ballistic” when the average Hawaiian who has been living under an umbrella of news that’s N. Korea can reach the island with a nuke is playing wordsmith to support your position. Second, you assume some cost for investigation and your assumption is not based in fact. Even if it cost 10 million (which there is no evidence it does) the US spends 10 million on much more frivolous occasions—such as golf courses and vacation destinations for government employees—compared to figuring out why this occurred and trying to improve the warning system.
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LesClaypool said:
As usual, Ranger is completely wrong.

It’s like he tries to get the incorrect answer every time.
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If you say so. I am done with this thread since everyone seems happy we will spend 10's of millions on an investigation that will solve nothing. Have a great night.
 
RangerNole said:
If you say so. I am done with this thread since everyone seems happy we will spend 10's of millions on an investigation that will solve nothing. Have a great night.
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How is this investigation different than any of the other ones your government wastes millions on? I would say this mistake is certainly more important than say steroids in baseball.

An entire state (the closest one to NK) was told a missle was inbound. I don't think the civilians were trying to dissect the semantics to decide how serious the blast was gonna be.
 
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Well, we know how it happened, a human clicked on the wrong line in a drop down menu. He has been reassigned. Obviously the website needs to be redesigned so that the test icon is not next to the warning icon.
 
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F4Gary said:
Well, we know how it happened, a human clicked on the wrong line in a drop down menu. He has been reassigned. Obviously the website needs to be redesigned so that the test icon is not next to the warning icon.
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I'd love to see the disaster options in that drop down menu. You think Sharknado is on the list?
 
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travnole said:
How is this investigation different than any of the other ones your government wastes millions on? I would say this mistake is certainly more important than say steroids in baseball.

An entire state (the closest one to NK) was told a missle was inbound. I don't think the civilians were trying to dissect the semantics to decide how serious the blast was gonna be.
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It doesn't and that is the problem. I don't doubt that the people of Hawaii were scared and being scared was the rational feeling. My issue is we are still talking about it and rather than just fire someone and fix the issue we are literally going to have multiple federal investigations and who knows how many other investigations. Meanwhile the guy who screwed up is simply reassigned, not fired by the way. Pretty sure a good percentage of the locker room could read a 2-3 page report of what happened and give the solution to the mistake.
 
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