My Experience with the Ballistic Missile Alert in Hawaii

Imagining having your Saturday morning turned upside down to what you believed may be the last minutes of your life. On January 13, 2018, Hawai’i was shaken by an alert on our cellphones, televisions, and radios of a ballistic missile on its way to Hawai’i. My first thought was “WHAAAAAT?!” and I got out of bed, put on some leggings, and ran downstairs. My roommate Summer was also calling me and freaking out, trying to contact her family. My first instinct was to call my mom and let her know what was happening, and when I was trying to spit out my words I burst into tears because it hit me. This was it. This would possibly be my last minutes until all is unknown. I snapped back to reality because my mom was frantic that I was freaking out because she didn’t even know that there was a threat. I significantly remembered telling my mom, “Go inside! Close all the windows as fast as possible and go in your office! I love you.” I called my dad and he was being calm because he did not want to freak out my little sister, but I could tell he was scared and he told me to be safe.

I started to think proactively what to do to shield myself from the blast. My roommate and I went into our downstairs bathroom with whatever water we had in our bottles and just sat on the ground, waiting. At that moment, I turned to social media and news outlets for more information.  Then we got the alert saying that it was a false alarm 38 minutes later. In those moments of being an emotional wreck, I felt a sense of relief and also a “what the BLEEP just happened.” I called my family and we sort of just shrugged it off and saw it as a blessing in disguise.

Being the curious person I am, I tuned into press conferences and learned about the mishap that happened and what could’ve been avoided so that the whole state of Hawaii didn’t go into shock. Now that I look back at it, I wasn’t prepared. I even forgot to close my windows in my room which would have been bad considering the initial blast and radiation fall out would’ve leaked into my apartment if the missile actual have been launched. Also, I had no perishable foods that would help me get by until emergency officials says it’s okay to leave your home or enclosed area. This was a huge eye opener for me because these types of disasters are things you can’t prepare for like a hurricane or thunderstorm. This false alarm stirred up some heavy controversy and, in my perspective, I think that we can only learn from this and learn to prepare ourselves in an event if this ever happens.

This was probably one of the scariest times of my life because the amount of uncertainty and the little amount of time you have is such a crazy experience.

• missile
• threat