As you may have heard, Hawaii was thrown into turmoil on Saturday morning, when at just after 8am local time, everyone on the archipelago received a message on their cellphone: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
Fortunately, it was a false alarm.
HAWAII – THIS IS A FALSE ALARM. THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE TO HAWAII. I HAVE CONFIRMED WITH OFFICIALS THERE IS NO INCOMING MISSILE. pic.twitter.com/DxfTXIDOQs
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 13, 2018
Unfortunately, receiving a text alert like that – and seeing the same alert on the news, and all over Twitter – can really fuck a person up. Exactly what do you do when you’ve just been notified that you’re likely gonna die in the next fifteen minutes, along with everyone around you?
An AskReddit thread has addressed just that, with Redditor u/Echocookie asking:
People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?
What follows in the thread is an astonishing collection of stories from Hawaiian Redditors that run the full range from funny (and probably fake) to absolutely heartbreaking (both the good kind and the bad kind).
Plenty of people describe the terror and helplessness of thinking that they could do nothing to save their children; many said they called their mainland friends and family to say goodbye; others stayed in bed with their loved ones, happy to spend the rest of their lives holding on to the people who mattered most.
Here’s a small selection of the best responses so far. Be warned: it’s likely to get you thinking about your own mortality, and what you might do if faced with the end of the world as you know it.
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by u/fusepark from discussion People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?
in AskReddit
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by u/Fischer_Mann from discussion People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?
in AskReddit
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by u/yeahreddit from discussion People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?
in AskReddit
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by u/Touch_My_Nips from discussion People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?
in AskReddit
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by u/5929myracles from discussion People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?
in AskReddit
Hold your loved ones close, friends. And for god’s sake, someone fire whoever accidentally sent that alert. Christ on a bike.
