News Hawaii false nuclear alert

[steph]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42680070

I was out in town with some buddies when the news feed on my smartphone fills up with stuff like "incoming ballistic missile threat to Hawaii". Thinking it was the real deal, I didn't want to get even more freaked out by reading the articles, got some more drinks and promptly informed my buddies that nuclear war has started and NK is nuking Hawaii :lol: .
Several thoughts went through my mind: since it's NK, It might be just one shot and they don't have the range or the interest to hit us. If global nuclear war does start, in the middle of gooddamn Transylvania we might be too insignificant to get a direct hit. And I'm in an underground pub, built in some old cellar or bomb shelter, so we're relatively ok in the short term. But man, did we party hard when we realized it was only a false alarm :rofl:

 

[Apollon]

On the bright side, if Fallout (the video game universe) is right, a pub is the best place to experience a nuclear holocaust due to the abundance of bottle caps (they are used as the main currency) which essentially makes pubs the equivalent of banks in post-nuclear environment.

 

[steph]

On the other hand, imagine if someone with authority in the military got a phonecall from terrified loved ones in Hawaii and just decided to launch without further checking. Maybe they couldn't have launched nuclear, but they would have lobbed everything they had at NK.
Also, imagine if the "commander in chief" saw this on Fox as the crisis was unfolding and didn't bother to fact check before ordering strikes.

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:01 PM ----------

On the bright side, if Fallout (the video game universe) is right, a pub is the best place to experience a nuclear holocaust due to the abundance of bottle caps (they are used as the main currency) which essentially makes pubs the equivalent of banks in post-nuclear environment.

we would have been rich :rofl: And beer is safe to drink after a nuclear attack:lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

On the other hand, imagine if someone with authority in the military got a phonecall from terrified loved ones in Hawaii and just decided to launch without further checking. Maybe they couldn't have launched nuclear, but they would have lobbed everything they had at NK.

At least nothing nuclear - those require a few steps and persons more.

 

[Notebook]

Here's hoping there aren't any typo errors between UK and NK. Should be easy to spot, and we don't have any plans for Hawaii...

N.

 

[steph]

I'm somehow skeptical about the whole "someone pushed the wrong button" thing. Too much of a coincidence. It might have been a hack. If they gain the ability to activate the alerts, they might also have the ability to shut them down. Just sayin...

 

[Apollon]

On a related note..

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm somehow skeptical about the whole "someone pushed the wrong button" thing. Too much of a coincidence. It might have been a hack. If they gain the ability to activate the alerts, they might also have the ability to shut them down. Just sayin...

Not sure - maybe it was a tutorial to a new employee and somebody went all the way to the final push on the enter key.

 

[Andy44]

My first thought upon hearing this story was, "Hawaii's government actually has a text alert for a missile attack?"

The whole thing sounded like a hoax to me.

There's a youtube video out there of a kid playing a prank on his family by playing back a tape of a civil defense warning that a nuclear attack was underway. This smells like a similar thing.

 

[RisingFury]

On the bright side, if Fallout (the video game universe) is right, a pub is the best place to experience a nuclear holocaust due to the abundance of bottle caps (they are used as the main currency) which essentially makes pubs the equivalent of banks in post-nuclear environment.

On the bright side, we'd all get to see what happens when Trump is turned into an orange super mutant by the FEV. You think anyone would notice a change in his intellectual capacity? :lol:

 

[Apollon]

On the bright side, we'd all get to see what happens when Trump is turned into an orange super mutant by the FEV. You think anyone would notice a change in his intellectual capacity? :lol:

Read the following in super mutant voice: "CNN Fake News. I stable genius. Hillary crooked. Sad."

 

[jedidia]

On a related note..

That's why you don't have flat-earthers in your strategic committees, I guess... :rofl:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Nah, they use the map on the UN flag.

 

[Mojave]

On the bright side, if Fallout (the video game universe) is right, a pub is the best place to experience a nuclear holocaust due to the abundance of bottle caps (they are used as the main currency) which essentially makes pubs the equivalent of banks in post-nuclear environment.

On the bright side, we'd all get to see what happens when Trump is turned into an orange super mutant by the FEV. You think anyone would notice a change in his intellectual capacity? :lol:

I really gotta thank you guys for the humorous response to this. It really made my day.

As a student of Emergency Management, I am furious and angered by what transpired yesterday. Accidents happen, but I am absolutely shattered by the fact it took so long for the all-clear to reach the people in Hawaii. Information dissemination was atrocious, and felt like a shot to the leg to me. It just goes to show that our agencies need to work on building better information-sharing protocols between the levels of government. Fourty minutes is a long time for people to wait to die...

I guess I'm just glad their was no immediate, un-scrutinized retaliation.

 

[Apollon]

It just goes to show that our agencies need to work on building better information-sharing protocols between the levels of government.

Unfortunately the reality is that bureaucratic management advances primarily when making mistakes and rarely can it evolve or even maintain the same level of efficiency without stumbling upon obstacles that force it to elevate its degree of readiness and effectiveness. What happened yesterday was indeed first and foremost a disaster but also a lesson which fortunately did not include casualties, a lesson which will mandate a revision of current procedures and systems (which presumably did not evolve much following the end of the cold war) not only in the impacted region, but probably US-wide and perhaps beyond.

I suppose one should be grateful that this scenario did not occur in a major metropolis such as LA or NY.

 

[RisingFury]

Read the following in super mutant voice: "CNN Fake News. I stable genius. Hillary crooked. Sad."

Doesn't sound any different...

 

[Linguofreak]

My first thought upon hearing this story was, "Hawaii's government actually has a text alert for a missile attack?"

The whole thing sounded like a hoax to me.

There's a youtube video out there of a kid playing a prank on his family by playing back a tape of a civil defense warning that a nuclear attack was underway. This smells like a similar thing.

There have been similar incidents in the past. The nationwide emergency broadcast system was activated by mistake in '71, although the nature of the supposed emergency was not specified in the message.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I was kind of surprised at how ill prepared people were. Does nobody know anything about civil defense anymore? Or it a because I'm a cold-war survivor that I still have plans in place?

 

[MaverickSawyer]

I was kind of surprised at how ill prepared people were. Does nobody know anything about civil defense anymore? Or it a because I'm a cold-war survivor that I still have plans in place?

Most people have willfully forgotten such things, thinking that the threat of nuclear warfare is something that ended with the Cold War, or is the domain of fiction.

I have a plan, but it's highly dependent on which of several probable targets in the area gets hit, and which way the wind is literally blowing.

 

[Artlav]

Plans?
Wake up, sigh, grab the wallet and documents, climb down into the cellar, try going back to sleep, climb back up, get a thick cover, climb back down, go back to sleep.

With nukes you are either screwed or not screwed. In the former case you won't wake up anyway, and in the latter case there is no point to wake up early anyway.