Jan 16, 2018 2 min read

Right around the same time folks in this region were donning their heaviest sweaters, firing up snowblowers and heaving bags of rock salt on Saturday, it was another day in paradise in Hawaii.

Another day where temperatures topped out at around 80 degrees and dipped into the mid-60s. Another day of brilliant sunshine for tourists to bask in. Another day to let the folks back home know they were wiggling their toes in the sand while everyone four or five time zones away was losing the feeling in their toes as they tried to make their driveways passable.

Then, right around the time people were heading to breakfast in Hawaii, came the by-now notorious notification that went out over phones and television screens that ballistic missiles were incoming, that residents should “seek immediate shelter,” and “this is not a drill.”

It’s hard to think of many other things that would so effectively break the idyllic, tropical mood.

It turned out, of course, to be a snafu, leaving state officials in Hawaii to issue profuse apologies and vows to get to the bottom of the incident. Given the tensions right now between the United States and nuclear-armed North Korea, the alert must have seemed all too plausible. It took 38 minutes for it to be withdrawn, and that must have been an excruciating 38 minutes for folks who were convinced missiles were just over the horizon.

According to the Huffington Post, “The alert forced people to act quickly and make difficult decisions. Is there enough time to gather family members? Should they hide in the closet? Should they take refuge in a tunnel under a mountain? None of these options guaranteed safety.”

Resident Chea Paet told the website, “I immediately ran into the house to wake up my fiancée and told her we needed to get to the guest room or pool in case we saw the blast.” He also told his fiancée to send a farewell text message to her parents.

It’s a good bet there are a lot of people who were in Hawaii Saturday who look at life very differently now.