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What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

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331–340 of 381 posts

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#331
post #42

If someone did launch a missile, and it were destroyed with a secret weapons system, this is precisely the timeline (alert, not a drill - passage of 30+ mins to write a cover story about shift change, “oh sorry false alarm”) and news articles I would expect to see. The only thing we know is that we won’t ever receive the truth. Can you imagine how much worse it would be if the story were “US anti-missile defense dest…

> The only thing we know is that we won’t ever receive the truth.

How do you know? If you never get the true.

> Can you imagine how much worse it would be if the story were “US anti-missile defense destroys weapon headed for Hawaii”?

For the Trump administration? It will have been a blessing. Forget about porn stars, Russia, tax reform for the rich, ... just talk about war.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#332
People actually fell for this? First of all, it's doubtful North Korea could launch an ICBM that is capable of hitting it's target. Second, even if it could, I doubt the US doesn't have an anti-missile system capable of interception. And finally, if it was Russia that launched it, you'd be fucked anyway.

All this shows is how susceptible Americans are to fake news.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#333
post #90

I saw a high-effort self-post on Reddit that gave a good framework for evaluating what might have happened. I thought it was good enough that I've recopied it here in full hoping that author appreciates reaching a larger audience and that discussion here might be better than that on Reddit. Repeating, I'm not the author of what's written below. --- A couple of possibilities for what REALLY went down in Hawaii yesterd…

Ok, let's debunk this crackpottery. > The threat was real, the missile was shot down If NK had launched something, multiple countries would have detected the launch, acted against the launch, and let everyone else know about the launch. If NK had launched something, it would have been picked up by NORAD or similar, and the order to alert everyone would have flowed downwards from there, which means that all the alert…

Thank you!

The number of people who are posting, tweeting, etc looooong convoluted theories & explanations, and yet can't seem to figure out that this was a civilian warning system & nothing more, is amazing.

What happened in Oahu was essentially that a guy ran out in the street shouting "the sky is falling!". His button let him use some push notifications to everyone's phones & TVs, but little more.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#335

People actually fell for this? First of all, it's doubtful North Korea could launch an ICBM that is capable of hitting it's target. Second, even if it could, I doubt the US doesn't have an anti-missile system capable of interception. And finally, if it was Russia that launched it, you'd be fucked anyway. All this shows is how susceptible Americans are to fake news.

I imagine it was very convincing, imagine yourself and everyone you know receive the same message. I don't know what the TV and radio coverage was saying at the time, but plenty of people were sceptical.

If NK launched a strike at Hawaii your chances of survival would be high, so taking cover and stockpiling potable water would make a lot of sense. NK's warheads are relatively small, they have a limited number and the reliability and accuracy of their weapons are unproven.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#336

Must be a terrible thing, if anything good can come out of this I hope it alerts people to the horrors of nuclear war. I am puzzled by why we speak so much about global warming but almost nobody talks about nuclear war. Global warming is not remotely as dangerous as nuclear war. Sure it will make crops fails some places, cause water shortage for some millions, force people to move off the coast etc. But it will not k…

Have to disagree that climate change, combined with intensive farming, couldn't potentially kill billions. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#337

> and an employee pushed the wrong button I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button. In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely w…

According to the Washington Post, it was a dropdown with two options next to each other - "Test missile alert" and "Missile alert". It's really that bad.

https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/952719318688718850

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#338
This should give everyone serious pause. If this false alarm had been sent by NORAD (it has happened before, read Command and Control), it's very likely that several million people in both Koreas, Japan and possibly the US would be char-grilled nuclear krispies right now. There needs to be a serious re-evaluation of our alert systems and launch on warning posture.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#339
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can survive a nuclear war. People survived very close to the hyoocenter of Hiroshima, even without warning or knowing about fallout.

You can survive a single small nuclear explosion if you're a comfortable distance from it and/or happen to be underground and protected. Your odds of still being alive five years after a full scale war are tiny, unless you have your own concrete bunker a long way from any likely targets, and it's conveniently equipped with a near-infinite supply of water, food, livestock, seeds, farming equipment, and fuel.

There is not going to be a full scale war with NK: they don't have enough nukes.

Re: What It Felt Like in Hawaii When Warning of an In-Bound Missile Arrived

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had considered that too and breaking a window to gain access was an option. I'm not a member of the church, but I chose this building specifically as it was most likely to have other people seeking shelter there who also had keys to the building. Indeed, the first family to arrive after us lived a block away and I did verify they do have a key.

Doesn't breaking a window to get in negate the "sealed windows" advantage of the location?

You can cover up a broken window from the inside.

Better, that, than standing outside...

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