By SYDNEY MANNING
Contributing Writer
On the morning of January 13, residents of Hawaii were sent this message on their phones, “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Many people in Honolulu (and the rest of Hawaii) reacted with fear and panic after seeing this alert. People who were driving were told to immediately get out of their cars and seek shelter.
Christi DiStefano, who lives in Hawaii during the winter months, said that a friend of hers did not want to get out of her car, until she got to the nearest city because there is nothing around to use for shelter on the main highway of the Big Island. DiStefano also said that people take the threat of a missile very seriously, especially those who have children. It is reported through many news outlets, that parents were putting their children in storm drains; because people believed that was the safest place.
The initial message was sent out at 8:07 a.m. According to USA Today, a Hawaii emergency medical assistant, EMA, employee accidentally clicked the wrong button; sending mass panic across the state. If someone is able to accidentally press the wrong button then they should definitely not be working at the EMA.
DiStefano said she initially thought, “what the heck,” while drinking her morning coffee. After that, she turned the TV on to the major news networks, where nothing was being reported. She then turned on the local news stations; which at the time were playing basketball games. Then, much like alerts we get on our TV’s here (for severe weather, like snow or rain), her TV started blaring the message that was sent over the phones. DiStefano was mostly in a state of shock, and did not think it was real. I think that if something was actually going to happen, then the new stations would not be playing basketball games. These news stations would instead have reporters, and the governor on the screen, feeding information to the public.
After the second phone alert, stating that the initial message was a false alarm, DiStefano thought, “…someone really messed up.”
Just days after the false missile alert in Hawaii, Japan experienced similar circumstances. According to NYTimes, “Japan’s public broadcaster on Tuesday accidentally sent news alerts that North Korea had launched a missile and that citizens should take shelter…” It is reported that NHK, who is a broadcaster in Japan, accidentally sent these alerts. While broadcasters have a right to free speech, they should not abuse this power-even if what they did was an accident. It is not right that citizens in Japan had to go through the fear and anxiety of thinking a missile is coming for them.
Thankfully for the citizens of Japan, this accidental alert was corrected after five minutes-unlike in Hawaii, where officials delayed speaking out for 38 minutes. It eventually took five hours for David Y. Ige, the governor of Hawaii, to issue an apology for the mistake. The Governor of Hawaii should have not waited as long to issue an apology. This makes him seem like he has more important things to do, than issuing a much needed apology. In the event of an actual missile, this event showed that Hawaii needs to work out the kinks in their procedures.
