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Some employers & institutions instituted the recommended "Shelter in place" procedures, other employers did not, INCLUDING Hilo Post Office, which sent their employee HOME!.
Rule one of nuclear attack: Seek shelter. So a government agency with employees in a large concrete building sends them OUTSIDE?
This ought to make the short list of things to be investigated.
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Some employers & institutions instituted the recommended "Shelter in place" procedures, other employers did not, INCLUDING Hilo Post Office, which sent their employee HOME!.
Shelter in place makes several presumptions, and it should take into account your location and a notification of the source of the inbound missile:
Oahu: The most likely the target of a North Korean missile. Stay where you are, it's the best and safest location from which you can protect yourself should there be an actual blast, especially given a short 15 minute time frame in which you have to prepare. It will also keep the 100 mph, red light running cars off the road.
Big Island: Most likely not the target. We have more time to react, so likely employees, shoppers, etc. could get home after they hear the warning. Unless it's an EMP blast and it fries the electronics in your car.
I don't see a problem with giving Big Island residents the option of sheltering in place or going home. Let the individual decide how to spend their time in this situation, not be forced into a one-size-fits-all Oahu-centric rule.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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"I don't see a problem with giving Big Island residents the option of sheltering in place or going home..."
This is perfectly reasonable. But a government agency demanding that employees leave the safety of a building upon report of inbound nuke-tipped missiles? (I do not know if this is exactly what happened at the Hilo Post Office, but the suggestion is that this is the case. There are pretty credible reports that several stores on Oahu demanded that everyone leave the premises.)
Scandalous. I'd be surprised if this did not receive national media attention.
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My gut says there's no way to know where the inbound missile is actually going to the degree of accuracy necessary to differentiate between any of the Hawaiian Islands, at least not soon enough to make a difference.
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We all need to take a look into HOW the "system" did NOT work!
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Apparently, there is a "drop down box" in the application, with various choices, one of them being something along the lines of "alert system test" and the other, "send alert" (have not got the actual wording just yet).
The employee simply selected the wrong drop down and then immediately clicked the ""OK" on the "are you sure?" button.
Chalk it up to 5th graders doing the programming along with a hurried employee who was into on going home after his shift.
In any event, it was incompetence that caused it, on many levels.
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there's no way to know where the inbound missile is actually going
True.
It's a presumption that Honolulu is the target, as well as a presumption that a limited number of missiles are headed in our direction. And a presumption that the country firing them can aim.
But... given that the government controls so much of what we do 24/7, and given that the rules in place were written by officials in Honolulu for the majority of the population on Oahu, I don't think it's too much to suggest those of us on the Big Island are allowed to go rogue and do what we think is best for us during the 15 minutes missiles are in the air. Hopefully longer if we're not the target, or if they missed.
"This is an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water.” - President Donald J. Trump
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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Don't know where I read it, and can't attest to it's veracity, but allegedly Nuclear shelters are to be built. Probably on Oahu, with a completion date of 2025. Nice little earner for contractor 'friends of government'. Probably turn into comparable boondoggles like the Oakland Bay Bridge repair (started 1989, allegedly 'finished' in 2014, horrendously over time and of course way over budget. And the infamous San Francisco Airport remodel which started in the early '60's and is not yet complete. Winchester House, anybody?
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Has anyone seen any confirmation of some of the alert sirens going off? There were reports of this initially, but I haven't seen any news that this was actually true. Since they are supposed to be on a separate system I'm curious to know how they could have gone off, that's if they really did of course.
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"The employee simply selected the wrong drop down and then immediately clicked the ""OK" on the "are you sure?" button.
Chalk it up to 5th graders doing the programming along with a hurried employee who was into on going home after his shift."
Leilanidude - the alert was issued by an employee who had just started their shift.
