On January 13th, 2018, at approximately 8:05 AM (all times local), personnel at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) were conducting a routine test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) during a shift-change at the Diamond Head Crater headquarters. The building, known as State Warning Point, serves as a command center for all of the separate civil defense agencies on the Hawaiian islands. Two minutes later, an employee (according to official statements) accidentally bumped a button or in some other way triggered a statewide warning test. At 8:07, citizens all across Hawaii received an emergency alert on their phones.
BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Screenshot of the alert message provided by a local resident
In an instant, citizens all around the islands began seeking shelter or in other ways preparing for imminent nuclear war. Those who lived through the Cold War undoubtedly felt their childhood traumas coming back to the surface; those who were young enough to have missed the Cold War found themselves gripped with a new kind of fear. Cars stuck in traffic were abandoned, people ran from restaurants, and students at the universities were evacuated to shelter. There are even some reports in social media that, in some areas, sirens went off, although as of this writing we cannot independently verify that with video. For a few brief minutes, everybody held their breath and expected the worst.
Slightly less alarming message received from the same resident
At 8:10, State Adjutant Major General Joe Logan confirmed with US Pacific Command that there was, in fact, no missile threat. Honolulu Police were notified of the false alarm by HI-EMA at that time. Three minutes later, State Warning Point issued a cancellation of the message. This means that, should the recipient phone have been out of service or turned off, it would not have received any message. But to anybody who had their phone on, the message had already been sent and received. By 8:20, HI-EMA had issued a cancellation of the alert on both their Facebook and Twitter accounts. However, most people were either seeking shelter or otherwise not entirely focused on social media for the moment. At 8:24, Governor Ige retweeted the HI-EMA notice, followed at 8:30 by a post on his Facebook page.
Working to avoid any further possible panic, HI-EMA sought and received permission from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to issue a clarification message via EAS over local TV/radio at 8:45:
False Alarm. There is no missile threat to Hawaii.
False Alarm. There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. Repeat. There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. False Alarm.
Further, a WEA was issued which repeated the first line of the EAS, confirming there was in fact no missile threat to Hawaii. At 9:30 AM, over an hour after the alert went out, the Governor made his first notification to the media about the incident. Steadily people became aware of the reality, and began leaving shelter (if they’d evacuated to one) and going about their days, albeit collectively shaken.
Launch Under Attack Timeline from the book “Managing Nuclear Operations”
Tensions with North Korea are sky-high. Imagine, for a moment, if President Trump had received that alert on his phone. It would be a stressful, frightening moment for any president, but for one of Trump’s caliber it would be especially distressing, if not disastrous. An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) would take approximately thirty minutes to reach the mainland US, so slightly (though not much) shorter for Hawaii. Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) reach their targets typically in under five minutes. While North Korea has yet to test an effective, nuclear-capable SLBM, they have stated repeatedly that they intend to do so. In the case of an SLBM, the president would have less than five minutes in which to be alerted and take action. In the case of an ICBM, the launch would first be detected by either a satellite that looks for the distinctive flash of a missile launch, or by an RC-135S Cobra Ball aircraft (which has been sighted in Japan recently). That information would be sent immediately to the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), who would begin alerting relevant commands of the incoming strike. Missile trajectory would not be calculated, most likely, until about ten minutes after launch, at which point the ICBMs would be visible on radar. Note that by this point, SLBMs would have impacted their targets.
RC-135S Cobra Ball with a distinctive black right wing (to cut down on glare)
A message would be sent to the President, who would then have the remaining time (until impact) to make his decision. Bear in mind, if he waits too long, our own ICBMs may not get off the ground in time, not to mention the bomber squadrons. Time would be of the essence. The President would have five, perhaps ten minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate. A rational president would struggle with that decision, but rational Donald Trump is not. Thus, it was only by chance that the President was out of the office today (golfing) during the alert. Had he been in the office, there may have been a vastly different outcome to today’s events. We hope this serves as a lesson to everybody about the dangers of nuclear brinkmanship, but unfortunately, we do not believe the proper people will receive that message from the day’s events.
Timeline of events based on this statement from HI-EMA
