We are at the beginning of our annual sojourn on Maui. Yesterday, at a little after 8:00 AM, we were having breakfast at a lovely beachfront restaurant All of a sudden my phone started to scream, as did those of my wife, my son and all the other patrons in the restaurant. Picking up my phone, I read: "Emergency alert -- BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
I looked at it a few times, looked around the room at the other patrons, shrugged and went back to my breakfast. I mean, if it was real, what could one do? go to the basement, so the building could collapse on me? Head up the mountain, where I would be more exposed to blast and radiation from an explosion at Pearl Harbor? Not much would help. After all, if one is to die, why not do it in paradise with a glass of fresh guava juice and Eggs Benedict? All of the other patrons in the restaurant -- probably mostly Canadians -- also shrugged, put their phones down, and continued with breakfast. It took 38 minutes for the "authorities" to issue a retraction through the emergency system. My son was able to find a couple of reliable tweets stating it was a false alarm within about 10 minutes, but still, the delay was inexcusable. Elsewhere in Hawaii, there was real panic. In Honolulu, hospital patients were moved from their beds to the basement. tourists panicked on Waikiki. Children were in tears. The biggest problem is that, if there ever is a real alert, who would believe it. An hour after the event, CNN was covering nothing else. The mistake appears to have been human error, at the level of the state emergency center in the crater of Diamond Head, and even the senior military on Hawaii (who would be the first to know of a real attack) were caught by surprise and confused. On Maui, most were more concerned with the high surf warnings than the ballistic missile warning. A bit of excitement in the midst of the serenity of paradise. Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
