Hawaii reinstates Cold-War era nuclear attack warning signal amid North Korea tension

* Separate from NK Thread.

* Indicator

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(NEW YORK) — Hawaii is reinstating a statewide nuclear attack warning signal in December to prepare for a potential attack from North Korea.
The alarm, which has not been used since the Cold War will be reinstated on Dec. 1 as part of a ballistic missile preparedness program, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA).
Residents are instructed to immediately “Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned” when they hear the siren. Alerts will be sent to resident’s phones and broadcast on television and radio.
“When [HI-EMA] started this campaign there were concerns we would scare the public. What we are putting out is information based on the best science that we have on what would happen if that weapon hit Honolulu or the assumed targets,” said HI-EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi during an emergency preparedness presentation.

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http://kticradio.com/abc_national/ha...abcid36001960/

For other than changes in Civil Defense posture, see the primary North Korean thread for updates.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=25028

Any other Americans remember seeing surplus vehicles painted baby blue, with the Civil Defense insignia?

The organization still exists.
https://tacda.org/

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The US agency tasked with protecting the country from missile attacks is scouting the West Coast for places to deploy new anti-missile defences, two Congressmen said on Saturday, as North Korea's missile tests raise concerns about how the United States would defend itself from an attack.

West Coast defences would likely include Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missiles, similar to those deployed in South Korea to protect against a potential North Korean attack.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a8089251.html

Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

Adam G cited:

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The US agency tasked with protecting the country from missile attacks is scouting the West Coast for places to deploy new anti-missile defences, two Congressmen said on Saturday, as North Korea's missile tests raise concerns about how the United States would defend itself from an attack.

West Coast defences would likely include Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missiles, similar to those deployed in South Korea to protect against a potential North Korean attack.

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I find this 'scouting' now story barely credible. So the US government has had no contingency plans for homeland defence against a long predicted, possible threat? If true then someone needs to explain.

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Originally Posted by davidbfpo

Adam G cited:

I find this 'scouting' now story barely credible. So the US government has had no contingency plans for homeland defence against a long predicted, possible threat? If true then someone needs to explain.

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I think it is believable, and it doesn't mean we don't have existing missile defense systems in place (you can read about the tests of those defense systems in the media). I interpret this to mean that they're thickening the current ballistic missile defense systems. A recent article said the current systems are only 60% effective when they have conducted preplanned tests. Clearly hitting a bullet in flight with another bullet isn't easy. Suspect the success ratio will decrease when real world intercepts are attempted when there is limited or no warning, and there is bad weather on top of that. All the more reason to put more systems in place.

Also a reason to focus on the pre-emptive strike. Yes, the preemptive strike comes with a lot of risk baggage, but so does getting struck by a nuclear weapon.

Millions of Japanese will take part in evacuation drills in Tokyo as the country simulates a nuclear attack

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Tokyo will conduct nuclear evacuation drills for the first time next year
The drills will take place between January and March in central Tokyo
Residents will practice heading to shelters as warning sirens blast out
North Korea last week fired a powerful nuclear-capable ballistic missile

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ills-time.html

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Originally Posted by davidbfpo

So the US government has had no contingency plans for homeland defence against a long predicted, possible threat? If true then someone needs to explain.

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Not to the Dr Strangelove era level of Civil Defense. To wit,
http://www.mauinews.com/opinion/lett...ld-be-helpful/

Commentary by LTG Dan Leaf (Ret) worth reading -

Comprehensive missile defense for the homeland
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/...nd-commentary/

Summation -

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Having the strategy is not enough. The government must have supporting policies including assigning operational responsibility and clearly defining engagement authority. Ballistic and cruise missile defense are two different challenges technically and tactically. The authorities for missile defense are divided piecemeal between multiple commands and agencies. If there was ever a situation where unity of command matters, this is it. In the event of a missile attack, there will not be time to decide who is going to decide.

North Korea and terrorism are clear and immediate dangers, but the missile threat to the homeland must be a long-term concern countered with a comprehensive homeland missile defense plan from the Department of Defense and supported by the administration and lawmakers. This CMHD should be a key element of the follow-up to the new National Defense Strategy.

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Citing North Korea's growing nuclear and ballistic missile threat, the Trump administration is moving to vastly expand the problem-plagued homeland missile defense system despite warnings that the planned upgrades may not succeed.
Immediate plans call for building two $1-billion radar installations and adding 20 rocket interceptors to the 44 already deployed in underground silos at Ft. Greely in Alaska and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

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http://beta.latimes.com/politics/la-...222-story.html

We were motivated to protect ourselves.

Origins Of The Nike System
http://alpha.fdu.edu/~bender/N-view.html

Hitting a Bullet with a Bullet
A History of Missile Defense
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a381863.pdf

Interesting how the "NIMBY" kneejerk manifested. Thanks, DTIC!
See also Chicago

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Detractors in Hyde Park
“Two unmistakable attributes of Cold War culture were conformity and fear. There was a great deal of centrism, as it was understood at the time,” Allen says, “because it was still thought that Americans must ban together, regardless of their differences, to beat a common foe.”
Still, there were citizens who raised concerns about the missile programs; some used the “not in my backyard” argument, calling the missile installations unsightly. Others questioned the need for the weapons.
The Hyde Park area was a hotbed for protest on both fronts, as Chicago’s southernmost lakefront missile site was, after all, in that neighborhood's backyard. A 1955 Chicago Tribune article mentions that members of the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference “vigorously protested” construction of a radar center on Promontory Point. That didn’t stop the Army from installing it, however.

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https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-c...c-75480a3d4cb7

NYC removes Nuclear shelter signs.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ne...cid=spartandhp

Rhetorically, *why* was there a false alarm?

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Residents of Hawaii were thrown into a panic Saturday morning after an emergency alert was sent warning of a ballistic missile threat. But officials minutes later tweeted that it was a false alarm.
"NO missile threat to Hawaii," the state's Emergency Management Agency tweeted at 8:20 local time (1:20 ET).
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, tweeted: "This is a false alarm. There is no incoming missile to Hawaii."

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...icials-n837511

We now know why, and why it generated some drama, and there will be accountability and lessons studied based off this event. Maybe more importantly we need to double down on dealing with North Korea. Other states have the ability to strike us, but only KJU is foolish enough to openly declare he'll nuke us.

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Originally Posted by Bill Moore

We now know why,

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You're far less cynical than I.

Once is happenstance...
Twice is coincidence...

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Japanese public broadcaster NHK issued a North Korean missile launch alert on Tuesday evening—but, like a warning issued in Hawaii over the weekend—it turned out to be a false alarm.
The alert was published on the news channel's website and sent to thounsands of people who use the company's news app. Within minutes, the mistake was corrected. The broadcaster later published a clarification and apology on its website.
One Twitter user who received the alert said it read: "North Korea appears to have fired a missile, evacuate inside a building.” Five minutes later, another alert said it was a false alarm.

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http://www.newsweek.com/japan-news-b...e-alarm-782116

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The Hawaii emergency management employee who set off a statewide panic on Saturday morning by sending out a false alarm about an incoming ballistic missile has been temporarily reassigned, but there are no plans to fire him or identify him publicly, a state official said.
The employee, who has worked for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency for 10 years, sent the missile alert to cellphones across the state by picking the wrong option on his computer for a routine drill, and then confirming his choice, according to Richard Rapoza, the agency’s public information officer.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/u...eassigned.html
Right.

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The siren that went off Friday afternoon at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant resulted from an accidental activation, authorities said.

A spokesman for Duke Energy, which owns the plant in New Hill, N.C. in southern Wake County, said the energy company is investigating what prompted the alarm to sound shortly before 1 p.m. The siren prompted a flurry of calls to WRAL News and posts on social media.

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http://www.wral.com/shearon-harris-n...rror/17274101/

1)
What A Nuclear Missile Attack On Hawaii Would Look Like
http://www.defenseone.com/threats/20...d-look/145319/

2)

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The recent announcement that the Swedish government plans to issue booklets to all Swedish households on what to do during a national crisis or in wartime made the news in both Europe and the United States.
But far from being a newfangled invention, it is a "Back to the Future" moment for Sweden, albeit with an internet age twist, and the Swedes are not alone in this. Indeed, the U.S. may have a thing or two to learn from Sweden and other European nations on crisis preparedness.

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http://thehill.com/opinion/internati...-prep-booklets

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TOKYO — Tokyo held its first missile evacuation drill on Monday with volunteers taking cover in subway stations and other underground spaces that would double as shelters in the event of a North Korean missile strike.
The choreographed evacuations at a fairground and park ringing the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium involved around 300 volunteers.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-k...-drill-n839741

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Honolulu’s 911 dispatchers were inundated with more than 5,000 calls immediately after an emergency cellphone alert warned that a ballistic missile was headed for Hawaii.

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The thousands of calls overwhelmed the city's 911 system, the mayor said, and approximately half went unanswered, Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard told NBC affiliate KHNL. The city's police, learning early on that it was a false alarm, sent officers out with bullhorns to calm neighborhoods, she added.

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Welcome to 1941.

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One of the first lessons from the terrifying incident, experts say, was that calling 911 is not the best first-response to an imminent nuclear disaster. In the larger sense, the false alarm served as exactly what it said it was not — a drill.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ts-say-n838836

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Washington (AFP) - North Korea has made new advances in its intercontinental ballistic missile program but has not yet demonstrated all the capabilities needed to hit America with such a weapon, a top US general said Tuesday.
While Pyongyang has shown it can put the United States in range and point a rocket to the country, General Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it has not yet proven that its fusing and targeting technologies can survive the stresses of ballistic missile flight.

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/n-korea-n...152813350.html

Hawaii's false missile alert sent by worker believing attack on U.S. was imminent

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.17892cc80c67

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HEMA administrator Vern Miyagi resigned on Tuesday to take responsibility for the January 13 incident, Logan said, and the emergency warning officer who sent out the alert of an imminent ballistic missile attack was fired on Friday.
A state investigative report released on Tuesday said that the fired employee had been a "source of concern" for 10 years because of his "poor performance."
"He is unable to comprehend the situation at hand and has confused real life events and drills on at least two separate occasions," the report said.

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The overnight-shift supervisor informed the day-shift supervisor of the plan but the day-shift supervisor understood the drill was for the overnight workers ending their shift not for his arriving staff.
"As a result, the day shift supervisor was not in the proper location to supervise the day shift warning officers when the ballistic missile defense drill was initiated," the FCC report said.
It said the overnight-shift supervisor called the day-shift warning officers at 8:05 am pretending to be from US Pacific Command.
A recorded message was played over the phone which began and ended with the words "exercise, exercise, exercise."
The message, however, also included the phrase "This is not a drill" used for an actual live ballistic missile alert, the report said.
Three day-shift warning officers listened to the recording on speakerphone and one of them "believed that the missile threat was real" and issued a live alert at 8:07 am after hearing the sentence "This is not a drill," it said.
The officer declined to be interviewed by the FCC but said in a written statement to HEMA that he did not hear the phrase "exercise, exercise, exercise."
"Other warning officers who heard the recording in the watch center report that they knew that the erroneous incoming message did not indicate a real missile threat, but was supposed to indicate the beginning of an exercise," the report said.
"Because we've not been able to interview the day shift warning officer who transmitted the false alert, we're not in a position to fully evaluate the credibility of their assertion that they believed there was an actual missile threat and intentionally sent the live alert (as opposed to believing that it was a drill and accidentally sending out the live alert)," it added.
The FCC was also critical of HEMA's failure to develop "standard procedures" to cancel a false alert and said "the error was worsened by the delay in authoritatively correcting the misinformation."
In the future, the FCC said, supervisors will receive advance notice of all drills and two warning officers will validate alerts instead of one.

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http://m.france24.com/en/20180131-ha...korea?ref=tw_i

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The man who sent the false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii said he isn't to blame for the mishap, and despite causing mass panic would not have done anything differently.
Speaking to NBC News, the former employee of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) instead blamed a systemic failure for the false alert on Jan. 13 that sent thousands of terrified residents scrambling for cover.
"I'm really not to blame in this," the man, whose identity was masked, said on camera. "It was a system failure. And I did what I was trained to do."

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgo...efends-actions

https://i.imgflip.com/1idb4j.jpg


See also http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...390#post210390

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Last month’s bogus ballistic missile warning in Hawaii and, now, this week’s tsunami snafu have highlighted trouble spots and prompted calls for change in the nation’s increasingly complex system for alerting Americans about dangerous weather, active shooters, kidnapped children, plant explosions and other emergencies.
Both incidents have prompted calls for reform, including better training for emergency workers in charge of sending alerts.

More than 1,000 federal, state and local government agencies have the ability to issue emergency alerts through an array of federally managed communications networks. It is a patchwork system that usually works as intended but can wreak havoc when it doesn’t.

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https://apnews.com/7f35ad7f72e44d369...l-alert-system