I live on O'ahu and was holding my phone when the emergency alert came in at 8:07am. I yelled "Oh my God!" and ran to show my wife the message. I've run through this scenario a few times in my head before and I knew every minute was critical -- so I went into action mode immediately. I told my two kids to get dressed now because we were leaving in exactly 1 minute. The reason we were leaving is our house is single-wall wood construction with no sealed windows and no HVAC, which is pretty much the least ideal shelter possible in a nuclear fallout scenario.
The four of us were in the car on the road at ~8:09 and inside the local LDS (Mormon) Church 0.9 miles away at 8:12am. The church building is the nearest concrete structure with sealed windows and interior rooms that I knew I could gain access to. Unfortunately it doesn't have a basement, but very few structures in Hawaii do.
Thankfully, the doors were already open as there was a family inside doing some cleaning. We were the first to arrive and at least a dozen other families showed in the next 10 minutes. We all hunkered in the gym, some crying, some praying, most just in shock. The first glimmer of hope came when I read the first report of the it being a false alarm on Twitter at around 8:23am.
The whole incident was absolutely terrifying and I'm very upset that it even happened. But, we learned some valuable lessons and I'm satisfied with how my family responded to the incident. Overall, my plan was good and was executed about as flawlessly as possible. I realize we need to add a "bug-out bag" of essential items (e.g. medications, cell phone charger, hand-crank radio) that we can grab as we head out.
It most definitely helped that I had considered this scenario before and knew exactly what steps I would take. The one good takeaway is that this event has sparked many similar conversations state-wide (and beyond) of what to do in these situations. Here's hoping these plans never have to be executed again...
There is a big misconception about nuclear attacks. Full scale nuclear war with a adversary like Russia is indeed an apocalypse scenario, but a single lowish yield nuclear detonation by a nation like North Korea is very very survivable, if you are prepared.
I have a similar evac plan with a bug-out bag that I gave my wife to keep at her work. For nuclear attack specifically, she is instructed NOT to leave her work and hunker down in their concrete basement for two weeks. Even being much closer to an estimated ground-zero, she is far safer in their well-shielded basement than trying to get home in the open fallout zone. The bag has enough rations, batteries, water, first-aid, etc for that period. Fallout zone radiation levels take about 2 weeks to drop to safe levels, at which time she has a printed google map for her to walk the 20 miles home.
My job is to grab the kids at school and hunker down in our basement where we have more exhaustive supplies, and ultimately get the hell out of town together.
Fallout is the biggest killer. Using http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/, and unfortunately fallout is highly dependent on wind direction - an important unknown on that day.
Given the unknowns and the likelihood that roads will be quickly impassible, it is best to prepare at home. It takes two feet of concrete or packed dirt to block radiation to a safe level, and that includes ABOVE you. Wood provides almost no protection. ...but if you do have a basement, then you can make a plan to place very heavy items (appliances & server racks) on the first floor above you and vehicles and stones/dirt/etc around that part of the house.
Fallout settles on surfaces, so it's a good idea to trim bushes and trees directly around that shelter - you want the fallout to hit the ground, not settle at a higher angle above you. ...and if you're in Hawaii or other coastal area and have easy access to a boat, that might be the best option because fallout sinks and there are no traffic jams at sea.
I had considered that too and breaking a window to gain access was an option.
I'm not a member of the church, but I chose this building specifically as it was most likely to have other people seeking shelter there who also had keys to the building. Indeed, the first family to arrive after us lived a block away and I did verify they do have a key.
There are plenty of situations where you have to deal with the reality of a nuclear blast that cell phones would still work. It's not all just ground-zero or nothing.
I'm currently living in Japan. So obviously I have a plan for nuclear war.
First, I'm going to press send on the doomsday draft which is sitting in my e-mail.
Second, I'm going to go to youtube and play "We all go together" by Tom Leher.
Third, I got a bottle sitting in my desk that I'm going to pop open. Presumably I'll be in the office at the time so one final round with the coworkers.
The people in this article seem much more stressed and have not yet come to terms with the fact that sometimes life ends abruptly (nuclear or otherwise). If you actually get a nuclear war warning for real, my plan is just as good as any other. At least I didn't spend my last moments frantically running a bathtub and panicking.
I don't know about you but filling the bathtub is my instinctual reaction to anything that goes wrong. Job going badly? Fill the bathtub. Medical emergency? Fill the bathtub. Lost my house key? FILL THE BATHTUB.
I live in Japan as well & told my family the same a long time back. There aren't that many other specifics you can plan for, with the family typically spread across the city on the average day, but at least grab a bathtub of clean water to see you through a few days till things settle down.
I'm guessing that you don't have children. And no, your plan isn't as good as any other; its just one that suits your own fatalistic attitude toward the risks involved.
Yeah I think it's one of the worst reactions you could have.
Without any indication of how bad the attack actually is, you should really assume the best and set yourself up to be able to survive.
What if it's a conventional bombing, or you're not directly in the blast zone? Or if the nuke fails to detonate?
The immediate aftermath if the most important time. While he's futzing around with Youtube and getting drunk the more intelligent people are coming up with a plan to live.
Whether it's getting the fuck out of there or stockpiling water or climbing into a storm drain, almost anything is better than sending emails and jamming away to cliche songs.
Unless you're saying this person is worth less than you, then the plan suited to them is indeed as good as the one suited to you.
A few popular assumptions that aren't necessarily true: Living is always better than dying. Your actions have an effect on the outcome. You can do it. People should always do what they should. It matters.
"I have decided that if I'm ever about to crash my car I will unclip my seatbelt and steer violently to the side. My plan is as good as any other plan"
If I survive, I'm a refugee, foreign national with minimal language skills, I'm likely in an active war zone and my nation is probably one of the belligerents. My chances don't look good.
Does wine do anything to increase the effective method of action of potassium iodide pill? Or just because? (My just because is to make pancakes in an emergency sit-tight scenario, when the power goes out for 3 days or I'm snowed in)
But being serious another nutrient you could take is Turmeric/Curcumin as an anti-rad supplement. However it isn't easily absorbed. There's a version called BCM-95 that is better. But better then that there's a Liposomal version that you can make at home with a ultrasonic cleaner. The idea is to buy 100% organic tumeric for $11 on amazon, and make the liposomal version. Take massive dosage if you are or about to be exposed to radiation. Sorry I don't have sources, because I'm not in the medical field, you'll have to source them and vet them yourself. If you are in the medical field I'd be interest in your input
Yah I hear ya, but if it's dprk launching a "low yield" device that lands a distance away you aren't going to be too happy with thousands of shards of glass in you because you didn't take some simple precautions.
You can survive a single small nuclear explosion if you're a comfortable distance from it and/or happen to be underground and protected.
Your odds of still being alive five years after a full scale war are tiny, unless you have your own concrete bunker a long way from any likely targets, and it's conveniently equipped with a near-infinite supply of water, food, livestock, seeds, farming equipment, and fuel.
Yes, exactly, thank you. The world has sharp corners and it appears that tourists and people who recently moved to Hawaii apparently have no idea that Hawaii's a fucking target. It's the center of the universe in the Pacific. There is an entire division of troops there, and carriers, and planes, and missiles, and nukes and nuke subs. Hawaii is the most tunneled piece of American soil. All of these people crying on the floor in the fetal position seem to have successfully lived out their lives inside a fantasy bubble where nothing goes wrong. I wonder how they would feel if they knew how dangerous it was to drive on the highway. It was actually less dangerous to go to Iraq than it was to drive on American highways. It's clear these fragile souls have no idea what's out there waiting for them.
> I'm currently living in Japan. So obviously I have a plan for nuclear war.
I can't tell whether this is meant seriously or not, but assuming it's serious, I'm genuinely curious as to why this is "obvious"? Is this historical (Hiroshima/Nagasaki) or due to current political tensions?
I'm also in Japan, and I have a pretty serious go-bag for this kind of thing. It's because of political tensions for me; we're in spitting distance of North Korea.
And I - just as genuinely, and not attempting to troll - am curious how anyone could be in doubt, current reports of red buttons and impressively coiffed heads of state taken into account.
Not sure but in Japan there are a lot of preparedness measures for earthquakes. Everyone goes through disaster training, people have survivals kits at home, are aware of evacuation centers, etc. There is some overlap between these measures and nuclear war but I'm not aware of a lot of planning for nuclear war itself.
Yeah, this isn't "obvious" at all. North Korea is not at war with Japan. What could it even gain from it anyway? Just war for the sake of war and have their country destroyed and their government overthrown? This doesn't make sense at all. Don't forget a lot of NK elite including Kin Jung-Un himself were educated in Europe. They know the state of the world.
So when I'll go to Japan again latter this year as a scholar, NK is the millionth thing I'll care. Because the risk isn't real, it's mostly propaganda towards a country that is trying hard to exists. I think the most important thread are actually the US and how they're unnecessarily adding fuel to the fire at any occasion.
In addition, I would mention that the mere existence of NK is a by product of the US intervention in the Korea War. Should the communist forces won like they did in China & Vietnam, the country would not have been parted like it is. And the situation towards capitalism would have started a normalisation like in China and Vietnam.
It depends if you have kids or not that you are responsible for. We can all make that choice for ourselves, but when you have kids most of us have a moral code to protect them from ‘sudden death’.
Exactly my thoughts. Errors happen, Developers are lazy and interfaces suck. However this is definitly not a excuse, multiple things have to be completely wrong that it even could get this far.
It remaining like that for 40 minutes is a bad sign, but it being easy to issue a warning seems reasonable (the counter-story is "No warning of the genuine threat was issued, due to the process for doing so being too involved/difficult").
That suggests an interesting question: if you issue a false alarm should you retract as soon as you can or can it be better to wait a while?
I could see retracting quickly leading to even more confusion as you then have a mix of people who have received (and believed the retraction) trying to resume normal activity and people who still thinking they have to get to a safer place right away. I could see this leading to some escalating tension and even violence.
It might be better to wait until a good majority of people have reached their shelters and stopped moving before you issue the retraction.
If the alarm is as easy to trigger as pushing a single button, then issuing an update that it was a mistake should be designed for. Ideally just a couple presses, something that can be done in under a minute.
I live in New York City and I felt a small degree of panic when the reports showed up on Twitter. However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up".
If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, especially Seattle, Vancouver, SF/LA, NYC, Washington DC, and Boston.
Growing up I got the impression that a fallout shelter was a purpose-specific room deep underground. So every time I saw the "Fallout Shelter" sign on a building, I figured it was built with one of these "secret underground rooms". Think dedicated, locked stairwell that goes a thousand feet underground; after all, that's how it was pictured in my "Way Things Work" book. When we went to the bank, it was something of an intrigue, where the door to this secret underground cavern really was and what was inside.
As I got to go into more city buildings throughout my life, I noticed many of the rooms designated "fallout shelters" were just some spare room in the basement, complete with ventilation to the outside and really, not much farther than a few steps to the front door.
There may be a lot of "fallout shelters" in NYC but I get the impression that the labeling wasn't very strict and that many of these "shelters" won't really protect you from "fallout".
It takes far less to be an effective fallout shelter than you might think. If you look at lethal ranges on H-Bombs you see incredible destruction, but if you're protected for the first 1hour after a blast you can be surprisingly close to the blast and live.
Off-topic, but if the book you’re referring to was the How It Works encyclopedia set, that was how I also learned about everything. My grandpa gave the set to me, and it included an incredible amount of material - illustrated and fascinating for a wide range of ages (this was long before we had internet). It is how I also learned about nuclear weapons, though I don’t specifically recall fallout shelters.
Looked through the index of my early German (English translated, published around the 1960's, I believe) "The Way Things Work" volumes I and II and didn't see fallout shelters.
It occurred to me though — when did they start calling them "fallout" shelters rather than "bomb" shelters?
I'm guessing (after having read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb") that this would be about when the hydrogen bomb came along.
It was sobering to read how dramatically more powerful the fusion bomb was compared to the first fission bombs. Suddenly the idea of going into a basement shelter to "survive" the blast became laughable. If you were far enough from the blast though your only comfort could come from a shelter from the fallout.
"Growing up" those shelters were considered around smaller, kiloton and low-megaton sized weaponry. The whole civil defense project fell apart after the 1950s once 100 Megaton hydrogen bombs become the norm. There's no sheltering from a city killer inside of a city, hence the reason the US quit pretending there was.
I still like Switzerland's idea of civil defense, but then nobody is going to attack the place where all the world's criminals keep their wealth anyways, so even there it's a complete sham.
I only get two posts on here because HN mods hate me, so I'm going to just add this: You don't have to worry about North Korea. At. All. The threat is already over.
As far as the false alarm in HI goes, maybe ask questions in the direction of "who is it that would like to embarass the current US Administration?"
> However, my initial instinct was "either the system doesn't work, or someone messed up".
Why? What really surprises me the most is that this seems to be a common thought. Did that happen before? Do you simply misstrust your government so deeply that you can not even assume something important like this is done right?
Really if i would get such a message on my phone (not even sure if my country does that) i would definitly expect the worst and act like that.
I felt the same way, but its not because I distrusted the government. The situation didn't feel like one wherein nuclear missiles would start being fired (or any missiles of any kind).
There's got to be some sort of build up before a conflict before it can't catch people in shock (hence the rational of actual surprise-attacks).
If tomorrow you read that Canada had invaded New York City, would you believe it instantly out of trust for your news agencies and government, or think that perhaps someone somewhere screwed up or was making a silly joke?
I wasn't in Hawaii, but I also imagine that I would assume that an alert like this is a false alarm. I've just lived through too many scenarios like this, albeit not on the same scale (think false fire alarms.)
Upon reflection, however, this seems like the definition of survivor bias.
I remember an occasion when I lived with a partner - the fire alarm had gone off and I immediately got out of bed and started putting my pants and shoes on. She asked why, I said "so we can go outside. What are you doing? Let's go."
She said she didn't understand the point - if it was a REAL fire, wouldn't they just come get us or tell us?
I don't know how prominent this thought process is, or why so many people don't take things like fire alarms seriously. Selection bias, perhaps you're right. Every fire alarm most people has ever heard was a drill.
This has happened twice at work now, even my manager was teasing me for telling people they should leave. Eventually I left on my own.
1. Your most logical thinking doesn't occur at 8am on a weekend when you just woke up.
2. Hawaii has a more ingrained trust of the EAS than most other states. We test our sirens and EAS monthly. Sirens for tsunamis aren't that uncommon, and there are several horror stories in Hawaii of how people have ignored the sirens and warning signs in the past and got killed.
3. It's a lot easier to determine its a false alarm in hindsight. At the time, you have no information other than the alert and the knowledge about the current tensions with North Korea. We all knew there was a chance it was a false alarm and sure hoped it was, but when your life is on the line it doesn't matter.
Depends on who was shooting them. The North Korean missiles are notoriously inaccurate and if Kim shot one off with a live warhead, there's a decent chance it would detonate within his own border.
Let's be honest - most people don't want to hear that the people living in drone target areas of Pakistan, Yemen, etc feel this way, else we'd be seeing many more stories about the psychological trauma faced by these folks.
(Just for clarification, this doesn't make it any better or less traumatizing. It is probably much more traumatizing, people just have to cope with it, because you can't live in constant fear forever.)
It’s interesting how people (anecdotally) don’t seem to have any plan for a nuclear attack, as opposed to, say, an earthquake or a fire.
I think there’s a stigma around even considering the possibility. However, it makes sense to at least talk with your family about what you would all do.
According to what I’ve read on the gov sites, it’s very survivable for a lot of people if you take key steps: surround yourself with as much building as you can (the middle floor of a high rise, or a basement three stories deep, etc.) Shower and dispose of any clothing that may be contaminated. Wait out the initial 24 to 48 hours until you’ve gotten official instructions (a hand crank radio is good to have.)
Generally, having a first aid kit, water, and food, is common sense for any potential outage of the infrastructure.
Sucks to consider the possibility, but worth having a conversation.
I think many people consider nuclear war an end of the world event. Working hard to survive just to be left adrift in the ashes of civilization with likely long-term health effects seems counterproductive to some of us.
The US/Russia/France have already detonated thousands of full power nuclear weapons all across the globe, primarily for testing. Although major cities would be ash, with millions lost in the senseless conflict, life would go on. You'd likely only have health problems if you had acute exposure to the blast. If you live somewhere irrelivant, radiation exposure won't be much more of a concern than it already is currently; whatever enviromemtal impacts nuclear weapons have, have already taken place.
Though the standard of living for survivors is sure to plummet, as famine and other secondary problems start to take precedence.
End of the world? No. Set back industrialized society two centuries? Sure.
A reasonable point, but it's sad that people consider surviving a nuclear war a more practical endeavor than altering the political direction of the country. Admittedly they are somewhat orthogonal, but I'm trying to highlight the problem of equating war with natural disasters as opposed to something over which we have any sort of political control.
According to game theory, the easiest way to win a game of Chicken is to tear off your steering column and wave it out your window.
In other words, preparing for nuclear war instead of preventing a nuclear war is how you win small battles, like where to put an embassy or whether foreign countries will respect your patents.
The idea is to get away from an area where particles can collect (like the ground). They seem to be saying that you wouldn’t want to choose a floor with a balcony, for instance.
I thought Nate Silver had a good take this week, which was basically that Nuclear Weapons have not been around long enough for us to draw statistical conclusions.
He continued that even if the odds were small, like a 1% chance a year, it would very much be worth being prepared for.
I don't struggle with those interviews at all, they are outrageous and shameful.
There's an argument to be made about conveying the scope of a tragedy to the public but it's also pretty clear that cameras are being shoved in people's faces.
> I don't struggle with those interviews at all, they are outrageous and shameful.
Sorry, I was being unclear in the context of an international audience: "I struggle with" translates from my-version-of-UK-English to my-US-coworker's-English as more or less exactly this :-)
(I'm told my tendency to say "sorry" continuously also gently mistranslates like this too...)
It's critical that the real impact of death and destruction be effectively conveyed in the media. All too often it's trivialized, sugar-coated, or made to seem like a video game.
People need to realize how devastating such violence is, instead of viewing it as a game or a joke, if there is to be any hope of reducing its incidence.
GP post is talking about actually asking this question of people whose families have been wiped out, not rhetorical questions posed in the comfort of an office.
I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button.
In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely will not be an actual post-mortem on the incident
According to the Washington Post, it was a dropdown with two options next to each other - "Test missile alert" and "Missile alert". It's really that bad.
Call me a cynic, but I'm willing to believe that there was a 'ballistic missile alert' button in the wrong place. Sometimes bad placements are only clear after the fact. I walked into a building once and the lights were out. I walked along the wall and pulled the first switch I found - which turned out the be the fire alarm.
The question is why, and there are far too many rabbit holes to go down for this one. For now I'll just settle for "bad people stirring things up for terrible reasons".
Readit News
The four of us were in the car on the road at ~8:09 and inside the local LDS (Mormon) Church 0.9 miles away at 8:12am. The church building is the nearest concrete structure with sealed windows and interior rooms that I knew I could gain access to. Unfortunately it doesn't have a basement, but very few structures in Hawaii do.
Thankfully, the doors were already open as there was a family inside doing some cleaning. We were the first to arrive and at least a dozen other families showed in the next 10 minutes. We all hunkered in the gym, some crying, some praying, most just in shock. The first glimmer of hope came when I read the first report of the it being a false alarm on Twitter at around 8:23am.
The whole incident was absolutely terrifying and I'm very upset that it even happened. But, we learned some valuable lessons and I'm satisfied with how my family responded to the incident. Overall, my plan was good and was executed about as flawlessly as possible. I realize we need to add a "bug-out bag" of essential items (e.g. medications, cell phone charger, hand-crank radio) that we can grab as we head out.
It most definitely helped that I had considered this scenario before and knew exactly what steps I would take. The one good takeaway is that this event has sparked many similar conversations state-wide (and beyond) of what to do in these situations. Here's hoping these plans never have to be executed again...
I have a similar evac plan with a bug-out bag that I gave my wife to keep at her work. For nuclear attack specifically, she is instructed NOT to leave her work and hunker down in their concrete basement for two weeks. Even being much closer to an estimated ground-zero, she is far safer in their well-shielded basement than trying to get home in the open fallout zone. The bag has enough rations, batteries, water, first-aid, etc for that period. Fallout zone radiation levels take about 2 weeks to drop to safe levels, at which time she has a printed google map for her to walk the 20 miles home.
My job is to grab the kids at school and hunker down in our basement where we have more exhaustive supplies, and ultimately get the hell out of town together.
Fallout is the biggest killer. Using http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/, and unfortunately fallout is highly dependent on wind direction - an important unknown on that day.
Given the unknowns and the likelihood that roads will be quickly impassible, it is best to prepare at home. It takes two feet of concrete or packed dirt to block radiation to a safe level, and that includes ABOVE you. Wood provides almost no protection. ...but if you do have a basement, then you can make a plan to place very heavy items (appliances & server racks) on the first floor above you and vehicles and stones/dirt/etc around that part of the house.
Fallout settles on surfaces, so it's a good idea to trim bushes and trees directly around that shelter - you want the fallout to hit the ground, not settle at a higher angle above you. ...and if you're in Hawaii or other coastal area and have easy access to a boat, that might be the best option because fallout sinks and there are no traffic jams at sea.
Wait, she’s what now?
I'm not a member of the church, but I chose this building specifically as it was most likely to have other people seeking shelter there who also had keys to the building. Indeed, the first family to arrive after us lived a block away and I did verify they do have a key.
Dead Comment
I don’t think it would work in the given scenario?
First, I'm going to press send on the doomsday draft which is sitting in my e-mail.
Second, I'm going to go to youtube and play "We all go together" by Tom Leher.
Third, I got a bottle sitting in my desk that I'm going to pop open. Presumably I'll be in the office at the time so one final round with the coworkers.
The people in this article seem much more stressed and have not yet come to terms with the fact that sometimes life ends abruptly (nuclear or otherwise). If you actually get a nuclear war warning for real, my plan is just as good as any other. At least I didn't spend my last moments frantically running a bathtub and panicking.
I live in Japan as well & told my family the same a long time back. There aren't that many other specifics you can plan for, with the family typically spread across the city on the average day, but at least grab a bathtub of clean water to see you through a few days till things settle down.
Deleted Comment
That's right, BUTHTUB
Deleted Comment
Without any indication of how bad the attack actually is, you should really assume the best and set yourself up to be able to survive.
What if it's a conventional bombing, or you're not directly in the blast zone? Or if the nuke fails to detonate?
The immediate aftermath if the most important time. While he's futzing around with Youtube and getting drunk the more intelligent people are coming up with a plan to live.
Whether it's getting the fuck out of there or stockpiling water or climbing into a storm drain, almost anything is better than sending emails and jamming away to cliche songs.
A few popular assumptions that aren't necessarily true: Living is always better than dying. Your actions have an effect on the outcome. You can do it. People should always do what they should. It matters.
http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/
https://emergency.cdc.gov/radiation/ki.asp
But being serious another nutrient you could take is Turmeric/Curcumin as an anti-rad supplement. However it isn't easily absorbed. There's a version called BCM-95 that is better. But better then that there's a Liposomal version that you can make at home with a ultrasonic cleaner. The idea is to buy 100% organic tumeric for $11 on amazon, and make the liposomal version. Take massive dosage if you are or about to be exposed to radiation. Sorry I don't have sources, because I'm not in the medical field, you'll have to source them and vet them yourself. If you are in the medical field I'd be interest in your input
Your odds of still being alive five years after a full scale war are tiny, unless you have your own concrete bunker a long way from any likely targets, and it's conveniently equipped with a near-infinite supply of water, food, livestock, seeds, farming equipment, and fuel.
I can't tell whether this is meant seriously or not, but assuming it's serious, I'm genuinely curious as to why this is "obvious"? Is this historical (Hiroshima/Nagasaki) or due to current political tensions?
So when I'll go to Japan again latter this year as a scholar, NK is the millionth thing I'll care. Because the risk isn't real, it's mostly propaganda towards a country that is trying hard to exists. I think the most important thread are actually the US and how they're unnecessarily adding fuel to the fire at any occasion.
In addition, I would mention that the mere existence of NK is a by product of the US intervention in the Korea War. Should the communist forces won like they did in China & Vietnam, the country would not have been parted like it is. And the situation towards capitalism would have started a normalisation like in China and Vietnam.
If YouTube goes down in the apocalypse, you can bet there will be a postmortem, and steps to avoid downtime the next time the world ends.
Aw, c'mon. I like Fallout too, but it's gotta be https://youtu.be/lIVgxFabzdE !
Dead Comment
...“It was a mistake made during a standard procedure at the changeover of a shift, and an employee pushed the wrong button.”
I've seen some shitty Admin Panels, but somebody "pushed the wrong button" and an end-of-your-world false alarm was going off for 40 minutes?! WTF?
Ya, it's the same panel that is installed in the White House. :) Now that's a comforting thought.
I could see retracting quickly leading to even more confusion as you then have a mix of people who have received (and believed the retraction) trying to resume normal activity and people who still thinking they have to get to a safer place right away. I could see this leading to some escalating tension and even violence.
It might be better to wait until a good majority of people have reached their shelters and stopped moving before you issue the retraction.
If someone started firing missiles at the US, the risk that we'd start shooting them back seems high, and I think NYC would be a city that would get pummeled in retaliation. This is probably true for a lot of major coastal cities, especially Seattle, Vancouver, SF/LA, NYC, Washington DC, and Boston.
Fun NYC fact: the city is littered with fallout shelters: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Zm18xuBxp8kSysodfr...
As I got to go into more city buildings throughout my life, I noticed many of the rooms designated "fallout shelters" were just some spare room in the basement, complete with ventilation to the outside and really, not much farther than a few steps to the front door.
There may be a lot of "fallout shelters" in NYC but I get the impression that the labeling wasn't very strict and that many of these "shelters" won't really protect you from "fallout".
It occurred to me though — when did they start calling them "fallout" shelters rather than "bomb" shelters?
I'm guessing (after having read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb") that this would be about when the hydrogen bomb came along.
It was sobering to read how dramatically more powerful the fusion bomb was compared to the first fission bombs. Suddenly the idea of going into a basement shelter to "survive" the blast became laughable. If you were far enough from the blast though your only comfort could come from a shelter from the fallout.
I still like Switzerland's idea of civil defense, but then nobody is going to attack the place where all the world's criminals keep their wealth anyways, so even there it's a complete sham.
I only get two posts on here because HN mods hate me, so I'm going to just add this: You don't have to worry about North Korea. At. All. The threat is already over.
As far as the false alarm in HI goes, maybe ask questions in the direction of "who is it that would like to embarass the current US Administration?"
Why? What really surprises me the most is that this seems to be a common thought. Did that happen before? Do you simply misstrust your government so deeply that you can not even assume something important like this is done right?
Really if i would get such a message on my phone (not even sure if my country does that) i would definitly expect the worst and act like that.
There's got to be some sort of build up before a conflict before it can't catch people in shock (hence the rational of actual surprise-attacks).
If tomorrow you read that Canada had invaded New York City, would you believe it instantly out of trust for your news agencies and government, or think that perhaps someone somewhere screwed up or was making a silly joke?
1) it seems incredibly unlikely, and
2) these systems haven't really been tested adequately for me to have much confidence in their utility.
Upon reflection, however, this seems like the definition of survivor bias.
She said she didn't understand the point - if it was a REAL fire, wouldn't they just come get us or tell us?
I don't know how prominent this thought process is, or why so many people don't take things like fire alarms seriously. Selection bias, perhaps you're right. Every fire alarm most people has ever heard was a drill.
This has happened twice at work now, even my manager was teasing me for telling people they should leave. Eventually I left on my own.
1. Your most logical thinking doesn't occur at 8am on a weekend when you just woke up.
2. Hawaii has a more ingrained trust of the EAS than most other states. We test our sirens and EAS monthly. Sirens for tsunamis aren't that uncommon, and there are several horror stories in Hawaii of how people have ignored the sirens and warning signs in the past and got killed.
3. It's a lot easier to determine its a false alarm in hindsight. At the time, you have no information other than the alert and the knowledge about the current tensions with North Korea. We all knew there was a chance it was a false alarm and sure hoped it was, but when your life is on the line it doesn't matter.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/study-...
I think there’s a stigma around even considering the possibility. However, it makes sense to at least talk with your family about what you would all do.
According to what I’ve read on the gov sites, it’s very survivable for a lot of people if you take key steps: surround yourself with as much building as you can (the middle floor of a high rise, or a basement three stories deep, etc.) Shower and dispose of any clothing that may be contaminated. Wait out the initial 24 to 48 hours until you’ve gotten official instructions (a hand crank radio is good to have.)
Generally, having a first aid kit, water, and food, is common sense for any potential outage of the infrastructure.
Sucks to consider the possibility, but worth having a conversation.
Though the standard of living for survivors is sure to plummet, as famine and other secondary problems start to take precedence.
End of the world? No. Set back industrialized society two centuries? Sure.
In other words, preparing for nuclear war instead of preventing a nuclear war is how you win small battles, like where to put an embassy or whether foreign countries will respect your patents.
Why would the middle floor of a high rise be better than its ground floor?
The idea is to get away from an area where particles can collect (like the ground). They seem to be saying that you wouldn’t want to choose a floor with a balcony, for instance.
He continued that even if the odds were small, like a 1% chance a year, it would very much be worth being prepared for.
I realise it’s easy to lose the impact on people’s lives behind a few words in a headline, and maybe I’m just too much of a cynic.
Pleasingly (to me) this article’s focus on feelings has some real meaning: namely the widespread panic that was caused by the false alarm.
(Like other folks in the previous HN thread I hope constructive lessons can be learned at all levels from this)
There's an argument to be made about conveying the scope of a tragedy to the public but it's also pretty clear that cameras are being shoved in people's faces.
Sorry, I was being unclear in the context of an international audience: "I struggle with" translates from my-version-of-UK-English to my-US-coworker's-English as more or less exactly this :-)
(I'm told my tendency to say "sorry" continuously also gently mistranslates like this too...)
It's critical that the real impact of death and destruction be effectively conveyed in the media. All too often it's trivialized, sugar-coated, or made to seem like a video game.
People need to realize how devastating such violence is, instead of viewing it as a game or a joke, if there is to be any hope of reducing its incidence.
I'm the same. It's a shameful effort to manipulate the reader's emotions. The same trick is also used by insurance salesmen and the like.
I would assume that was how it was explained to the governor, and that the actual system is software based (right?) - there couldn't possibly be an actual physical 'ballistic missile alert' button right next to the 'shift change' button.
In which case, the triggering of this alert is probably a bit more complex. However, this is treated as a sensitive system so there likely will not be an actual post-mortem on the incident
https://twitter.com/ericuman/status/952719318688718850
The question is why, and there are far too many rabbit holes to go down for this one. For now I'll just settle for "bad people stirring things up for terrible reasons".