Hawaii residents were left in panic after a missile warning appeared early Saturday morning. The message read:  “Ballistic missile inbound to Hawaii. Seek shelter immediately. This is not a drill.” The message felt very real for anyone in Hawaii at that moment with all the talk about the nuclear bombs being made in North Korea. Hawaii is also one of the closest places to North Korea that that is a part of the United States. It was reported that it took officials about 38 minutes to clarify that it was an accident. They claimed it was human error and that an employee had hit the wrong button.
Janel Hauk, a former Erie resident moved to Hawaii 17 years ago. The first thing she saw when she woke up in the morning was a warning message on her phone saying there was a missile. She said she was inside with her 5-year-old daughter and that her 3-year-old son was outside with his dad. Her husband and her 3-year-old came inside where they immediately started closing windows as soon as they got the alert. Hauk stated, “I looked down at my children playing at my feet and thought how glad I was we were all home. I would’ve been in hysterics if it was a school day.” The family soon found out it was a false alarm when Tulsi Gabbard (U.S. representative for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district) tweeted that it was a false alarm. Hauk said there was not much you could really do in the case of a 15 minute warning with a missile heading straight towards you.” She moved here after 9/11 and felt safer but now with the growing threat of nuclear war with North Korea she feels helpless. Hauk feels there needs to be a better safety plan in the case of a real missile crisis.