BALLISTIC MISSLE THREAT

... INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL." That's what my phone said at 8:07 this morning while I was getting Xander's insulin shot ready. But I didn't hear any sirens so I turned on the TV and saw ... basketball and soccer. No alerts or special broadcasts. So I decided it was a false alarm. Because even if it was real, what can you really do in 12 minutes? Which is how long the military guys said it would take a missile to get here after North Korea began test launches last year. Since Dad was fast asleep it would take about 15 minutes to get him up and in to the car; so I decided the best thing for us was to shelter in place ... and continued with Xander's meds and testing the Deebot. Besides, there are no public fallout shelters; they were decommissioned when the Cold War ended.

(Screen shot from KITV)

Twelve minutes later no missiles, Dad is still sleeping, Xander has his insulin shot & treats, and the Deebot is making the rounds in the living room.


At 8:45 another message came over the emergency alert system saying it was a false alarm. I checked the TV again and this time there were announcements about it being a false alarm. But I knew that already.

(Screen shot from KITV)

(Screen shot from KITV)

I continued with the Deebot testing. The manual says it will run for 110 minutes then return to its charging station; it did that. Tomorrow I will try the autostart; I need to double click the Autostart button at the time I want it to start, then see what time it starts the next day. I could also install the Deebot app on my phone and do it from the phone but I don't need another app on my phone.

Xander checking out the Deebot; I put the catnip toy on top of it to get the cats' attention.

The Deebot had a little trouble getting out from under the blue chair until I added the caster cups to the back feet of the chair.

Here's what it picked up after 110 minutes of cleaning an area that looked like there was hardly anything there.

Listening to the evening news it seems to me there are a lot of people who didn't pay attention to the information that the Hawai'i Emergency Management Agency has been giving out about emergency preparedness. People were thinking they had hours before a missile would arrive, some were going to the airport to try to catch planes leaving before the missile arrived! A guy was putting his kids in a storm drain; what happens after the missile hits? Who's going to get the kids out and take care of them? People were leaving concrete buildings for ... who knows where. I think the 38 minute delay in getting the information out about it being a false alarm contributed to the weird actions. FYI There was no change in activity in our neighborhood. 

(Screen shot from KITV)

(Screen shot from KITV)

Are we ready to shelter in place? Sort of. Food? Yes, we have 14 days worth of food that needs no cooking. (And more if we still have utilities.) Water? Nope, I dumped that out after the end of the last hurricane season; probably should fill those up again & keep them filled even after hurricane season. And I have identified the place in the house that is the most likely to provide the best protection from a hurricane; which will also have to do in case of nuclear attack. For a missile attack, closing the windows is easy (Dad's are always closed), but if they say we need to put up plastic sheeting (for chemical gas attacks) I have duct tape but not enough plastic for all the windows. One of the things I think people forget is that countries with nuclear weapons won't be launching only one missile at a time. There are at least 5 major military targets on O'ahu, the closest one to us is about 8 miles away, with 2 others within 10 miles. And if they decide to hit the Emergency Management bunker in Diamond Head then its about a mile away, although the walls of the crater would contain the shock waves of the blast. And there would be more than 1 missile for each target. (Remember those old World War II movies where a whole stream of bombs are dropped on the target by each plane?)

State #11 on my Jetsetter Map is Wisconsin. My ex-husband's family had a summer cabin in Wisconsin so we spent several summer vacations there. I'm hoping to get back to Wisconsin this year to visit a friend in Green Bay, then head north to visit friends in the Upper Peninsula.


Happy Birthday to Cousin Tomiko! And also to Ray!