Incoming Ballistic Missile alert sent to Hawaiians is false

good god, I hope so! whew!!

Scared us, for sure! My DH and I flew in last night, were slowly coming round having coffee with the TV news. He has a Cold War military service background. It was bizarre. We spoke to a senior naval officer on our flight who told us about the testing of the system last nov/dec, then we got the klaxons overriding CNN saying "this is not a drill". 

I think it might be time to go home to my hut in my sh17hole country- our next scheduled stop is Hong Kong though! 

See Delta Dawn 's thread.

Quoting myself, hahaha. 

My DH is still watching as I putter around unpacking. He reminded me that one of the very early reports said there was no suspicion of hacking.

He cannot believe the "employee on shift change pushed the wrong button" explanation, for one simple reason- in the 60's it would have been a minimum of two employees, two buttons, two codes, two confirmations. Surely checks and balances have not gone backwards over the decades?

Oh, while I am at it, forget about the WH/ bigwigs chiming in to chat to all the US citizens of Hawaii and elsewhere. 45 is playing golf, as usual. 

Talked to family. They were about to go out for the day when the text alerts lit up their phones. They stayed home, packed a light bag in case they had to evacuate somewhere, and just waited. They eventually went to their morning appointment, and my cousin laughed because the parking lot was filled. Apparently not everyone took the alert seriously. But, this cousin has the attitude that there is really nowhere to go if they ever get bombed. Inside, she is probably scared, but she also knows there is not much they can do if it ever happens.

Yes, he was golfing!

Not ok, I am sure there are some people who are traumatized.  Mostly kids ..   Hard for them to understand the why it was frightening but it wasn't real.

Thank you for the local knowledge. We are on Oahu and the aspect that made me think it couldn't be "the one" was the continued taking off of the big planes. I counted at least 4. Also, some of the local traffic continued, did not look panicky. No sirens on the street, after the cancellation there was a lot of police activity and sirens.

seek shelter where exactly?

This was us this morning. There was no place to go. No island mentioned. We just got the alert to evacuate. There is nothing to prepare you for this.

Confession time, peas. DH and I are on our swan song trip around the world. We discussed chucking the good old USA about a year ago, just when we were ready to push the button and buy tickets. I had to apply for a visa, high risk stuff according to the urban legends in my country. We debated "endorsing" 45 in any way whatsoever. We did not want to do it.

I think I remember a brief discussion on a thread with our Norwegian pea, miominmio where she was equally conflicted about a long awaited trip to NYC. We eventually decided not to change our plans. I got a visa ( asked for 90 days, got 10 years!) and we planned to do everything we need here before we go off to see uncle Vladimir P. My DH and I has a date at Lubyanka and bunker 45 with a contemporary, his opposite number in Russia in the 70's with a similar job (fighter controller) and a similar life expectancy if the button had been pushed back then. We didn't think it would be a good idea to have those stamps in our passports before trying to enter the states!

This morning, waking up in Hawaii, we had a weird moment. We sat and looked at each other as the TV klaxon went off and repeated "this is not a drill" for a couple of minutes, and we just stayed in, watching things unfold. What a wonderful world played as my Earworm.

I don't endorse uncle V's politics either but I do want my DH to keep his date with the Russian officer of the same vintage and I want to see Red Square and the Lubyanka. Incidentally, that is the one visa I as a South African passport holder did not need to get.

We had a great day in Washington DC, not planned but an accident of some scheduling changes. What a weird feeling when that was the day a very important vote took place.

What a wonderful, weird time we live in. What a wonderful world.

The thing is, Hawaii is part of the United States of America. Period. What happens there, happens to the other 49 states and 16 territories! We are all Americans. The POTUS should have been on this like butter on rice - a factual detailing of the incident to the news media and a calming speech to the ENTIRE COUNTRY!!!

Even after the error was discovered, we should have had something to ease our minds.

But he was likely trying to choose between an 8/9-iron instead of choosing which soothing words to send to the world.

I was away from the tv yesterday. Did trump ever address this?

Trump’s response to Hawaii missile snafu proves he can’t be trusted with more nukes: New York Times
TOM BOGGIONI 14 JAN 2018 AT 13:12 ET

In a cautionary editorial published after the citizens of Hawaii were thrown into a panic over a mistaken alert announcing missiles were incoming, the New York Times said the President blithe response was a reason to not entrust him with an expanded nuclear arsenal.

Following the frightening announcement in Hawaii on Saturday morning, the president was reportedly advised about what was going on, but chose to continue to play golf instead of, at the very least, attempting to quell the panic by using his heavily followed Twitter account to dispute the warning.

In fact, long after the warning had been debunked, the only statement issued by the White House stated: “The President has been briefed on the state of Hawaii’s emergency management exercise. This was purely a state exercise.”

Three hours after the alert, the president finally tweeted: “So much Fake News is being reported. They don’t even try to get it right, or correct it when they are wrong. They promote the Fake Book of a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information. The Mainstream Media is crazed that WE won the election!” with no mention of Hawaii.

The Times called the president out for it.
www.rawstory.com/2018/01/trumps-response-to-hawaii-missile-snafu-proves-he-cant-be-trusted-with-more-nukes-new-york-times/

He said NOTHING!

Bold mine..  You have said it well, Thank you!