The effect of the outrage over the false missile alarm will be that future warnings will be later or non-existent. The reason is that bureaucracies are single- minded. The priority of issuing a timely warning will change to a priority of not issuing a false one, which means double checking, triple checking and extra protocols that then mean more time before an actual warning is issued. So instead of 13 minutes, you will have even less time.
Should we spend the time contacting loved ones, or should we make a mad dash for a possibly useless shelter?
The good news is that we all got a reminder of how short life is. This should make us want to make each minute of our lives as special as possible. We should ask who and what are the people and things most dear to us, then adjust our lives accordingly.
Leighton Loo
Mililani
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Blame the system before the employee
In Lee Cataluna’s column on the mistaken activation of the missile alert system (“Somebody needs to get fired over false alarm,” Jan. Opens in a new tab14) Opens in a new tab, she was so intent on blaming the button- pusher that she overlooked the real problem: lack of appropriate redundancy in the system.
If, for example, two employees independently entered the data for an alert (or non-alert), a computer could check for discrepancies and prevent action until the problem was resolved. Multiple redundancies are needed.
Cataluna said surgeons’ hands are “sure” and their “minds clear and steady,” and so she blamed any button pusher who’s any less perfect. But think of all the redundancies that have gone into reducing and hopefully eliminating wrong-side surgeries, just to take one example.
Even the label on a vial of blood at a medical laboratory is double- or triple-checked for accuracy (by different people, including the patient) before being processed. Without redundancies like that, a seemingly small error on the label could cause a devastating error in diagnosis or treatment because, yes, we are all human.
Karen Essene
Waialae-Kahala
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U.S. firepower could destroy missile
When the emergency warning came, I asked my wife to pour me another cup of coffee, resting in the fact that we have so much firepower under water in the western Pacific, and firepower with accuracy, that I was actually looking forward to the end of that regime, including the immediate destruction of the launched missile.
Maybe next time.
John Day
Kaneohe
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Keep calm and finish shopping
At the farmers market Saturday, my son called about the emergency warning that a ballistic missile was on its way. I just calmly told him, “OK, I’m at the farmers market,” and hung up the phone. If I stayed on the phone, what would I recommend doing? If we somehow survived, I’d have food. As I bought some laulau, my classmate said it was a false alarm.
I saw many different responses on TV: students running on the street; a guy putting his kid in a manhole; others making tearful last-call goodbyes. My son calling me was his last-minute contact to me. I saw him 20 minutes later with a stash of veggies, gluten-free bread and laulau.
During the Cold War with Nikita Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower, we sought cover under our tables. With Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, there’s nowhere to run.
Sylvia Thompson
Makiki
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Fear and anxiety at university campus
Their young faces were white with shock; one quietly sobbed. A few other students and I consulted cell phones as we huddled in Watanabe Building, Room 112 on the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus, waiting for additional nuclear threat alerts. Yet I heard no sirens or jet aircraft roaring over Oahu, so my first suspicion increased that this was a false alarm or the result of a hack.
For nearly half an hour, we waited fearfully to see a blinding flash brighter than the sun suddenly appear in the brilliant blue Saturday sky, as over Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. They had no warning, no time to say goodbye, or prepare for death; we were allowed that small grace.
The following day, sadly, I had to listen to frightened children in Sunday school express their anxiety and fears.
Mark Slovak
Manoa
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No room for second chances in a crisis
Regarding Saturday’s “OOPS!” (Star-Advertiser, Jan. Opens in a new tab14) Opens in a new tab: It seems more than fair to recommend the state adopt the rule followed by our military.
There, because lives depend on officers entrusted with command, the reason for a mistake is irrelevant.
If it happens on the officer’s watch, she or he is immediately relieved of command. And promotions permanently end.
Saturday, while under no pressure, Hawaii’s multimillion-dollar emergency alert system failed horribly. Therefore, under the duress of a real attack odds are high such carelessness would likely add to the chaos and compound the damage.
Saturday, someone was entrusted with command over our multimillion-dollar system. It failed on that person’s watch.
In an emergency, there’s no second chance for the public. So the public should never have to depend on a system under the command of someone who already allowed a serious mistake. Period.
George L. Berish
Kakaako
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Headline on missile alert out of touch
“OOPS!” Are you kidding?
The headline of Sunday’s newspaper was an insult to the people of Hawaii and our visitors who, for 38 distressing minutes on Saturday, feared for their safety and that of their families.
There will no doubt be plenty of “fallout” from Saturday: political careers affected, loss of visitors to Hawaii and reduced confidence in the emergency alert system. Perhaps the positive results will be an improved system and families making better plans for dealing with all kinds of emergencies.
Whatever the aftermath, the Star-Advertiser’s Jan. 14 headline demonstrated that it was seriously out of touch with the community’s experience of the previous day, a day when Hawaii’s children — and of course their parents — were terrified.
We live in a painful time when trust in our leaders is seriously eroding. Hawaii’s people lost confidence in all kinds of entities and people Saturday; the Star-Advertiser did not do Hawaii, or itself, any favors with its off-base headline.
Susan and Richard Kowen
Beretania
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Others live in fear of U.S. drone strikes
Last Saturday, Hawaii had a brief taste of what it is like to live in countries such as Yemen and Pakistan, whose citizens live in fear of death by American drone strikes.
What goes around comes around, and so I believe our national security would be enhanced if we just stopped being the world’s biggest bully. Bullying, even at the international level, is a symptom of fear and cowardice, not strength and courage.
Neil Frazer
Kailua
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Don’t blame Trump for state’s mistakes
Hawaii’s liberals are predictably out in full force deflecting responsibility for their own inadequacies.
U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard leads the pack by suggesting the full statewide panic brought on by the substandard warning system, developed by below-average state government, “underscores” a problem with President Donald Trump’s North Korean policy.
Nice try, Tulsi.
Dennis Bosworth
Kekaha
