Hawaii's Ballistic Missile Warning and What It Was Actually Like

As told by a local who was there. This is my story of the day I thought my life would end.

Disclaimer: All meme image credits go out to the original posters who made them (names are in picture or mentioned in post)

I woke up to a flurry of text notifications that morning. While I may only have received it once, hearing a ping from 3 different phones was enough to wake me up at 8am. I half-asleep checked the message only to instantly sit straight up in bed. I went and shook my roommate Kevin awake to look at his phone, he was grumpy with me until he read it and then a silence of disbelief was in his eyes. I went over to wake Peyton who slept over the night before, and said to him...

"I'm sorry for getting mad at you the other day. If we are really gonna die, I just want you to know that we are good."

The sobering realization that life can end at any moment made me realize that even if it's over something stupid or small, life is too short for unnecessary pain. I didn't need the last memory of a good friend to be that I was upset with them. His eyes widened, and Kevin was like; "wow".

The three of us just sat there, faces in phones that this could not be real. Kevin spoke up and said that "I feel like I should call the police to see what's going on." He dialed, only to be met with a busy signal. Peyton decided to check the /pol/ board on 4chan, and I opened up Facebook. Someone must know what's going on right? Everyone was in a frenzy and no one had a clue.

There were a few bomb shelters on island, but trying to pull up their location only brought me articles from last year about how these shelters would not be able to defend against a missile. We were all still more or less tired, but were calmly thinking about the possible ending for everyone and everything we loved.

"I'm going back to sleep", is what I said to the two of them. Kevin questioned my completely irrational choice. I explained contently that if this is happening in a few minutes, I would want to die asleep instead of any other way.

"I had a good run."

Kevin laid back down with a laugh; "You're right. We're kind of on the 31st floor, and have pretty big windows." The realization was with us from the beginning. If this text message was true, it was already far too late for us. We are in the middle of Waikiki/Honolulu. The Capitol I imagine would have been the target, and even if we could drive, we wouldn't have been able to escape out of range. We looked up the amount of time it would take to impact, and it was around 10 or 12 minutes.

Guy Hagi meme. The weatherman who declared a tsunami emergency years ago.
The waves ended up being 1 inch high.
He is called "Lie Hagi", but story has it that he loves his memes so much,
he prints them out and puts them around the office.

We all laid in silence, I don't know what they were thinking. But I reflected back on my life as best as I could for a minute before thinking to myself; "Yeah I'm okay with this. I did live a great life, and I'm not alone." Another minute or so went by before it dawned on us why this felt somewhat... off.

It was so quiet, because there were no emergency sirens going off. The island of Oahu has an Emergency system that's tested at 10 am every 1st of the month and no matter where you are you'll hear it. Loud and clear. If this was, in fact, a crisis scenario they would have gone off. I've read articles and posts from people claiming to have heard them, but there weren't any.

We began searching again, for anything. The time passed, and we were beginning to wonder why nothing was happening. Peyton looked up from his phone for a moment; "We should have been dead by now." Not to be morbid or anything, but we were simply waiting out our demise. A few tweets, and image board posts later we found out that we would be okay. Another 20 minutes passed before we got the second text saying that we weren't in any danger.

It does get surreal when disaster warnings hit the state; when they never end up arriving. This has happened in the past with a tsunami, statewide blackout for one day, an earthquake and a few other things in the past 10 years or so. Now, don't get me wrong, people were speeding at 80/90mph on the H-1 freeway, and others in parking garages, and other safe looking places with family and friends. For us, we had to accept it, or be eternally damned. The moment that we realized that nobody was dying, I opened up my Facebook only to be greeted by memes and posts about the craziest joke of 2018. You have to remember that they said the button to send this message was pressed on accident.

I'm not sharing any images you can find off of "big sites" but instead are some of the hilariousness from my feed. There were literally hundreds of posts and original content. I find it absolutely mindblowing that TOO SOON is not an option for us, in a somewhat estranged manner, or maybe to cope, everyone joined in making light-hearted jokes about it right away. I mean, what are you going to do? The entire state of Hawaii is awake at 8 am, and this was so much to try to absorb, that no one could actually fall back asleep.

When I got into work, I found out that our Emergency text system goes out to everyone's phone in the GPS radius. So not only residents, but tourists statewide had this message to wake up to. A good portion of my cashier shift involved making dark, yet wholesome humor.

"How was your morning today?" smiles

"... I'm glad to hear you are enjoying your vacation, but remember other than beaches, we have sunsets, hikes, and missiles."

I even had a woman from Australia whose flight had landed right after the first text, and she got to the airport in disbelief. Another local woman said with a giggle; "The day can only get better now."

Wherever I turned there were bright smiles and laughter, everyone was actually really grateful that an attack did not go through. People all over complaining about having to go to work now, as if it was the lesser of two evils. It was an extremely positive day, and it's difficult to explain to someone that is not from here. Because the island is very small, synchronicities and strange occurrences happen more often. When something big happens, a mass hysteria of sorts takes place.

Facebook friend Tyler Shirakawa, literally had shirts made within the first few hours for sale in person.

Everyone becomes friendlier to strangers, people help one another more. Some seize the moment and open impromptu food stands on mountains, or run generators to keep one store in a mall open.

It might be the paradise way, but we laugh it off pretty fast and remind ourselves that each day is a blessing and that the hashtag #luckywelivehi is the mindset and not the destination.

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It is speculated that with all the near-misses we've had in recent years that we are overdue for something devastating, and the next real text alarm we get may not be taken seriously because of this incident. What I do know is that from being in the middle of this first hand, is not to believe things just because you read them. When you put people of every nationality in a small place, some of weirdest things happen.

So forget what you heard! It was a fantastic day, full of jokes, memes,
and appreciation for life.

9/30

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