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The LONGEST 38 Minutes of my Life - Hawaii Missile Threat

By
Real Estate Agent with Kona Home Team (luva llc) RS 62947

******* THIS IS NOT A DRILL ********* 

How do I even express how frustrated,  and mad I am right now! 

For people that did not experience the moment, I could never explain it in a way that you could understand, but I will try. 

At about 8::00 this morning my phone went off with an emergency alert...

 

How do you process this?  Imagine, you haven’t even made your coffee yet, and you get a message like this one!  

KEY WORDS:         THIS IS NOT A DRILL 


Remember, just a few months ago we started a new "Emergency Alert" siren to deal with "ballistic missile threats" , it has a waling sound to it, kind of eerie....    

      The first thing I do is rush in and wake up my wife, she looks at me like I am crazy, but I'm, like, NO - READ THIS - ITS REAL!!! 

Immediately she calls our 16 year old son who is staying with a friend, and proceeds to tell him how much we love him, and to be careful. She tells him to run upstairs and get with the family that he is staying with for the night. We also go over our emergency plan, make sure we all know where to meet if we are able to meet. 

What’s the next thing you do? Turn on the news! I kept flipping through the channels and I cant find anything, but remember we only have about 15 minutes from missile launch, to impact, so maybe they haven’t received it yet?  Finally, I found a station with the alert, imagine seeing this on your TV screen... 

Now I know it’s REAL! 

 

My wife makes our son stay on the phone with us, until what could possibly be the end?  I must admit, our son was very strong throughout this, kind of shrugged it off and said, really, there is not much we can do, I love you guys too. 

No parent should have this conversation with their child, it’s just not right. 

38 minutes later, we get notice that it was a false alarm, "Human Error" 

The man responsible is mortified, I felt so bad for him, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that he should have IMEDIATLY put out a follow up text that the threat is not real - why 38 minutes? 

In that 38 minutes, Hotels ushered guests into the basements, or underground parking. The hospitals did the same with its patients.

I am still trying to verify that a family on Oahu put their children into the sewers for protection. 

Bottom line, to our Governor, our Mayors, our leaders, quit minimizing the impact of what happened today. For 38 minutes, the citizens of your State were under a real threat, many panicked, many have had their lives changed forever, accidents happen, but it should have been a 2-minute accident, not 30 plus minutes. 

Here are some more videos

  

 

Hawaii Golfer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5iJlVm6IOI 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkxLSIzPOhM 

 

 

 

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Aloha, and have a great day 

Lance Owens (RS)

(808) 936-8383

Lance@KonaHomeTeam.com

www.KonaHomeTeam.com

LUVA Real Estate 

75-240 Nani Kailua Dr #8 , Kailua Kona, HI. 96740 (Pines Plaza

Comments (4)

Francine Viola
Coldwell Banker Evergreen Olympic Realty, Olympia WA - Olympia, WA
REALTOR®, In Tune with your Real Estate Needs

This was terrifying, and I can’t imagine dealing with this.  Thirty-eight minutes is an eternity, and it’s unbelievable the correct message couldn’t have been conveyed much sooner.  Thank God it was a false alarm.

Jan 13, 2018 05:52 PM
Silvia Dukes PA, Broker Associate, CRS, CIPS, SRES
Tropic Shores Realty - Ich spreche Deutsch! - Spring Hill, FL
Florida Waterfront and Country Club Living

Lance, iheard about this on the news. I'm glad it wasn't real but am wondering how this could have happened this easily.

Jan 13, 2018 07:03 PM
Kona Home Team (LUVA LLC) Lance Owens (RB-24133)

AS things unfold, it was a newer program they were running, then add on the fact that this was also a newer alert, and then factor in that they had no way to "recall" the threat. 
Lots of changes happened in the first week. 


 

Jan 28, 2018 01:33 PM
Dave Halpern
Dave Halpern Real Estate Agent, Inc., Louisville, KY (502) 664-7827 - Louisville, KY
Louisville Short Sale Expert

This would have never happened if the threat didn't exist in the first place. 

Search Google for - Why America's 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea failed.

Jan 13, 2018 09:21 PM
Joyce Marsh
Joyce Marsh Real Estate LLC - Daytona Beach, FL
Joyce Marsh Homes

Lance, this must have been a terrifying experience and the longest 38 minutes of your life. It is hard to believe that with sophisticated equipment and technology that a mistake like this can be made by human error and not caught for that extended amount of time.  

Jan 28, 2018 04:36 AM
Kona Home Team (LUVA LLC) Lance Owens (RB-24133)

It was definetly not something I ever want to experience again. I still cringe when we get alerts (high surf, winter conditions on Mauna Kea....)  ohh, and we just had the tsunami threat from the big Alaska earthquake, none of those are scary, but when you are given 15 minutes for a missle, that is an entirely new layer  to things.
Makes me want to delete the service on my phone. 

Jan 28, 2018 01:36 PM