It’s hard to imagine a worse way to be awoken on a Saturday morning in paradise than with a blaring Klaxon accompanying a government alert about an inbound ballistic-missile attack. But that’s exactly what happened to more than 1.5 million people in Hawaii this morning.
“BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII,” the emergency alert read, in all caps, on smartphones. “SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Hawaii residents tuned in to television or radio heard an even more threatening message, made worse by its monotone, computer-synthesized delivery. “The U.S. Pacific Command has detected a missile threat to Hawaii. A missile may impact on land or sea within minutes. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
War and politics notwithstanding, what makes such a false alert possible in the first place? Most Americans don’t know how emergency alerts work. Both the infrastructure for sending these notifications and the media ecosystem into which they arrive have changed substantially since the Cold War, when the shadow of nuclear annihilation last felt near.