38 Minutes
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I never quite thought about my mortality the way I did in the morning of Saturday, January 13, 2018. It was our second morning waking up in paradise - Honolulu, Hawaii. We were there celebrating my brother's big 40th birthday. Tim was laying in bed next to me watching soccer highlights on his phone while I was writing in my Bible study journal. It was a quiet, peaceful first few moments of the morning before we planned on having breakfast with the family and venturing out into the beautiful sunshine.
And then Tim's phone started violently vibrating on the bed.
It was an emergency alert.
It read: "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
Everything went black.
I said "Oh my God" and read the alert to Tim with hysteria in my voice. I couldn't breathe. I started having a panic attack. My mom came from next door and started frantically banging on our door to make sure we knew.
Tim and I threw shoes on and ran over to the other room where the rest of my family was to see if they had a plan or knew what we were supposed to do. I was hysterically crying. Everyone looked panicked. Manny, my brother's husband, ran downstairs to the lobby to ask if there was a plan in place and where we should go. They told us everyone needs to get down into the basement garage NOW.
So we ran downstairs and into the garage. Apparently that's the best thing to do - get as low as possible - if there's an incoming missile. But all I kept thinking is "what if this whole building collapses on top of us??!"
Then again, I didn't know what to think or even what the next 5 minutes held for our family. I just kept looking around at each of them thinking about how much I love them and how insane it was that we're all sitting down in a garage in paradise unsure if we're going to ever go home.
Time moved slowly.
After about 15 or so minutes down in the garage we decided to gather supplies (food, water, extra clothes, Tim even grabbed a knife) in case we did survive and there was looting after the fact. If there was looting, we knew we needed to bunker down and protect ourselves.
I don't think everyone realizes how far it actually got or how intense it actually was. The missile threat alert wasn't retracted for 38 minutes (THIRTY-EIGHT!). There are varying estimates, but I've heard it takes anywhere from 20-30 minutes for a missile from North Korea to strike Hawaii. We were positive we weren't going to make it.
Thinking about your death is a surreal experience - you don't go through something like that unchanged. I read stories of parents telling their children everything would be fine, that it was just a storm or tsunami warning and it would be over in no time, all the while knowing in the back of their mind that it could be the last minutes of their lives together. Heartbreaking. I read about people pulled over in panic on the freeways and a couple who just decided to lay on the beach because what else are they going to do? Might as well enjoy the last few moments of your life.
All I know about what happened is that someone hit the wrong button and they didn't have the retraction coded yet, so they had to code it on the fly (don't get me started on that). I read they're implementing a two-person verification process moving forward. The fact that so much panic and uncertainty could come at the hands of human error is unfathomable.
After the missile threat was announced as a false alarm, we all just sat there staring at each other with our well-deserved POG juice mimosas like "what in the world just happened?" Boy oh boy did we need those drinks ;)
We eventually got the energy back up to get on with our day and had a great rest of our trip. But, like I said, you don't go through something like this unchanged. I know I'm going to hold my loved ones tighter, stress less, live and love more, and make sure my priorities are always in proper order.
