Survived North Korea's first missile attack

[Chimerix]

Ever been woken up by a civil defense warning that there is an inbound missile? No? I would classify it as "effective" at getting you out of bed.

Welcome to our morning, for reals. At around 8am, our phones made the civil defense screech. I was in bed, but I heard the next door neighbor yell "There's a missile!" to his household. I lift my groggy eyes to see my boo trotting up the hallway, cell phone in hand, looking rather concerned.

"BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

Ok, first step is to confirm, right? Try to find the civil defense website. It's crashed, "internal server error." Ok, try to call civil defense. The line is busy. Ok, try to call 911. They don't answer. 1.2 million people on this tiny island, all trying to find information, and I wasn't the first to think of any of these approaches.

Ok, there's an app for getting information from the city & county. Download that. Flight time of a missile from Korea is about 15 minutes; how long have we been stuck at "confirm?"

Try to find a news source. The local broadcasters don't stream live, and we don't have actual TV. The radio station is playing its normal programming; that seems contraindicative, but not certain. The sirens haven't gone off; again, not proof, but indicative. Believe it or not, social media was the first to respond. A tweet was sent out that this was, in fact a drill. Or a mistake.

It was 38 minutes later that our phones got the civil defense all-clear. 38 minutes.

Anyway, we're alive and not irradiated. And discussing shortcomings in our current disaster-preparedness plans.

Happy Saturday!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... a357eecd62

[Mynock]

"SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY" means what it says. Don't assume you have 15 minutes because by the time they send you that text the missile is already in the air. Congrats on not glowing in the dark.

[PM2K]

Yikes! That's one way to get out of bed in the morning.... although I wouldn't like it.

I'm guessing someone may lose their job over this little "oops" which scared residents out of 10 years of life.

It reminds me of an incident which happened back in the first Gulf War of 1991. I was in college then and watching the war live at a local sports bar. This was the point when Iraq started lobbing Scud missiles at Israel, with reports of a possible air strike being n the air... and then the feed cut.

The talking head anchor then states gravely to the camera... "We just lost Saudi Arabia. This isn't good."

For god knows how many minutes we all held our breath... until the anchor clarified they just lost the satellite transmission from Saudi Arabia and not the place. Then the feed was restored, and off we went as if nothing happened.

Classic failure to communicate....

[Duncan Edwards]

Kind of a poorly designed warning system if that's all that is required to set it off. One night when I was a kid someone broke the lock off the box for the tornado siren and set it off during a minor thunderstorm. We were all outside trying to find a tornado in the dark and the local tv stations had no idea what was going on. It was a lesson for all concerned.

I'm sure some improvements to the system are already underway and you might want to do the same. In reality I'd say the likely hood of a NK missile attack on Hawaii is extremely remote but we're dealing with a potentially desperate adversary here. Get a backpack with three days of bare essentials and basic radio. Figure out where you are going to run before it happens. That will obviously be different at different times of the day. I don't take things near as seriously as some of the extreme cases you see out there but me and mine have enough bullets and beanie-weenies to make a decent stand against zombies, Commies, solar-flares, terrorists, musicians, etc for a long enough time to figure out what to do next. If nothing else just having a plan brings some peace of mind when everyone else is running around clueless.

Glad you're still here. May all future North Korean efforts be as successful.

[Mynock]

Morbidly interesting interactive map.......

http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/? ... 2523&zm=11

[Palinov Jensen]

Is it just me or did Chim's experience make anyone else think of the movie Miracle Mile?

[Duncan Edwards]

Is it just me or did Chim's experience make anyone else think of the movie Miracle Mile?

I thought about that movie quite a bit since I saw it during the original run (1987). Those people didn't have a plan and limited time to come up with something so they ultimately failed. The earliest influence was Panic in Year Zero (1962). Those people had at least unintentionally made some preparation for survival and were led by a ruthless dad who understood what they were up against. Similar doomsday flicks are part of what led me to make plans of my own no matter how far-fetched the potential scenario. While I fully expect to go on to live peacefully as a great-grandfather just like my great-grandfather I like to know what I would do in unlikely situations. Maybe it comes from being a Boy Scout (Motto - Be Prepared) At very least some modest preparation brings a little peace when things do go wrong. Especially if you have a family to look after.

[Fred588]

I have made as much preparation as I can for an array of potential natural disasters (tonados, ice storms, earthquakes, etc). However, with regard to a major nuclear war I have made the decision that I do not want to survive it. I'd prefer to be at ground zero of the first explosion.

Is it just me or did Chim's experience make anyone else think of the movie Miracle Mile?

I thought about that movie quite a bit since I saw it during the original run (1987). Those people didn't have a plan and limited time to come up with something so they ultimately failed. The earliest influence was Panic in Year Zero (1962). Those people had at least unintentionally made some preparation for survival and were led by a ruthless dad who understood what they were up against. Similar doomsday flicks are part of what led me to make plans of my own no matter how far-fetched the potential scenario. While I fully expect to go on to live peacefully as a great-grandfather just like my great-grandfather I like to know what I would do in unlikely situations. Maybe it comes from being a Boy Scout (Motto - Be Prepared) At very least some modest preparation brings a little peace when things do go wrong. Especially if you have a family to look after.

[Mynock]

If you don't take a direct hit, and can get inside and stay under shelter for a week while the fallout settles, your chances of survival are actually pretty good. Mil surplus gas masks and a stockpile of NRBC filters wouldn't be too expensive to ad to your disaster gear, they also work good for filtering out smoke if you have to escape a forest/brush fire.

[Tim Kelly]

You know that the Australian version of the Three Minute Warning ends with "....but you've still got time for a couple of ice-cold tinnies so NO WORRIES MATE!"