False alarm sounds real alarms

So what would you do if you had 10 minutes left to live before an intercontinental ballistic missile ended the world around you?

For roughly one million people in Hawaii, the question became real, not hypothetical, on Saturday when their cellphones suddenly emitted a buzzing noise and the screens were filled with this official “Emergency Alert.”

“BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

The alert, it turned out, was a false alarm, the result of an egregious error made by one clueless worker pushing the wrong button at the end of a shift.

But before the mistake was officially corrected 38 very long minutes later, a tidal wave of panic swept the Hawaiian Islands. Thousands of people scrambled for safe refuge in bathtubs, basements or highway tunnels — anywhere they might find protection from a nuclear Armageddon.

Thousands of others, including Canadian tourists, went through a surreal ritual of preparing for death — with a shot of vodka, a warm embrace of their partner or final, goodbye phone-call to loved ones.

At other, less fraught times in world history, it would be tempting to call this incident an unfortunate but anomalous blunder that resulted in regrettable though temporary fear that left no lasting damage.

This is not one of those times. With North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and American President Donald Trump routinely exchanging threats of war, the fears of nuclear confrontation are more real today than at any other time since the Cold War ended.

To witness the epic screw-up committed by Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency will make many reasonable minds wonder how susceptible the national security systems in the United States and North Korea are to similar bungling.

The people in Hawaii were told by a local TV station they had 10 to 12 minutes until the missile hit. That’s not much time for frightened civilians to respond.

Nor is it much time for military and political leaders in North Korea and the U.S. to accurately assess the situation and come up with a sane reaction.

This is why Hawaii’s false alarm is truly alarming.

Tulsi Gabbard, a member of Congress for Hawaii, sent out a tweet just 12 minutes after the initial alert to inform the public it was wrong. Of course, only people who use Twitter got her message.

But it took the state’s security officials 38 minutes to correct the error, which raises more doubts about their capabilities.

You do not need to be a fan of fantasy fiction to think that while Saturday’s bogus alert didn’t lead to a military escalation, a future error might.

It is, for instance, possible that North Korea might misread such an alert as a cover for an American military assault and launch its own attack.

If nothing else, Saturday’s alerts should prompt American and North Korean officials to seriously review their national security systems – and talk to each other.

Our world must find a way to ease the tensions gripping the Korean Peninsula.

From the Hamilton Spectator, published Jan. 15.