Emergency Alert! - Hawaiian Style

As I we took the first sweeping curve headed up the Saddle Road headed to Hilo for the weekend, both our cell phones blew up with Hawaii’s Emergency Alert Siren. And while it is illegal to read text messages while driving. We read the following:

Emergency Alert
BALLISTIC MISSLE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII.
SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

And I drove off the road…

Well, while I was not happy about driving off the road, seeing our Tommy Bahama’s “Air Stream” break loose from the hitch, or the notion of ballistic missile’s raining down on our heads, I was happy to see we had a nice “shelter in place” option. I knew the pantry was stocked with homemade cookies and a bottle of Patron iced down in the cooler.

I mean if you are about to kiss your ass good bye, go out happy and numb. My only regret was I didn’t think we’d have time to barbeque the pork ribs.

Seriously. This was terrifying!

9 Likes

I read about that…so sorry it had to happen! But at least you did have some ‘goodies’ and shelter.

Glad to hear you are OK. I remember these alerts from the Cold War era and they were unsettling even when you knew it was a drill.

Glad it was just a false alarm and to hear all is ok, I can image it was a terrifying experience for you to go thru.
We can only hope that everyone learns a lesson from this unfortunate error.

Was your Airstream damaged… in the image it looks like it landed in an unfortunate situation?

Hi John,

Actually the “Airstream” is our cookie jar - from Tommy Bahama. The photo was staged and the story was a bit tongue in cheek - my way of coping with, as you say, an unfortunate situation, something that scared the heck out of me and everyone else in Hawaii.

1 Like