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This is a huge oh, crap.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/13/hawaiis-scary-false-missile-threat-workers-push-wrong-button-to-blame.html

Serious pucker factor there yo.

Saw some pics that parents were putting their kids in the sewer!

Really wondering how the chain event truly occured that allowed this to happen....

Yeah, probably best not to have the buttons for Test events and Actual events right next to each other.

Look on the brightside.

Someday we can all look back at this, and laugh XD

..bet there's at least one person desperately trying to apologise to their boss and claim that of course they don't hate working here and of course they don't really think that about them.

Such incompetence
Well, at least I guess this leads to the system being improved, so you kinda could say it was a really successful test...

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Such incompetence
Well, at least I guess this leads to the system being improved, so you kinda could say it was a really successful test...

The system worked... Well too well. The test was a real test.

Him and this person, well they must be brothers from another mother lol
.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.newsweek.com/indian-india-nuclear-submarine-ballistic-missile-sank-hatch-left-open-777804%3famp=1

I wonder what changes are going to be made to prevent how this mistake happens again. It's easy to blame people, but what was the system in place that allowed the false alarm to go out?

On the plus side, at least the system works.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On the plus side, at least the system works.

Not really, since the alarm was false and caused undo anxiety and possible injury to the people it was designed to protect. I imagine a point by point check is now going on to see if standards were followed and what can be done at each decision point to see what can be done to insure against such occurances in the future.

Relapse wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
On the plus side, at least the system works.

Not really, since the alarm was false and caused undo anxiety and possible injury to the people it was designed to protect. I imagine a point by point check is now going on to see if standards were followed and what can be done at each decision point to see what can be done to insure against such occurances in the future.

It did though.

Yes it was false but thr broadcast systems got thr message out. The alarms and sirens sounded if needed. The messages got to the people of the islands via thr various methods. E

Not a good test. But it showed the system can deliver a emergency message.

The broadcast part worked, I will give you that, but the initial alert and verification failed

Relapse wrote:
The broadcast part worked, I will give you that, but the initial alert and verification failed

It's a symptom of a much older problem to be honest. The problem of "you don't know what have until it's gone".



During the early days of the Cold War, the United States had a well developed Civil Defense system in place. But after the late 1960's, anti-nuclear scientists had everyone convinced that if the balloon went up, and the birds flew, we were all gonna die. Nuclear War, they said, wasn't survivable. School drills for nuclear attack were done away with. CD equipment, like gieger counters, became novelties. People started ignoring tests of air raid sirens (and eventually, the alert systems fell into disuse or were repurposed), fallout shelters fell into disrepair, CD stockpiles went out of date and were never rotated, evacuation plans in the event of an attack were never updated, and defense installations around major cities were dismantled. Those that still took preparation seriously were labeled as "kooks", and the concocted "survivalist" label became a dirty word. Civil Defense was pushed off on local governments, with Federal support eventually drying up. Eventually CD was renamed in most jurisdictions and propped up by meager State funding.


All of this prior to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and reduction of the threat of all out nuclear war.


However, the U.S.S.R. never let their civil defense efforts lapse until the Soviet economy started tanking just prior to the fall of the Communist Bloc. It can be argued that the end of the Cold War made everybody even more complacent. People believed that the threat of nuclear war was gone forever, instead of simply being greatly reduced. The Superpowers may have started standing down from Cold War strategic readiness, but others were eager to take their place.


In the years since that time we've seen China's missile technology improve greatly and their ambitions to become the next global hegemon grow. We've also seen Israel confirmed to have been a nuclear power since the early 1970's (if not before), with modern missile delivery systems becoming operational since then. Pakistan, a known harbourer of international terrorists, has gone nuclear. There are Middle Eastern powers with nuclear ambitions and the technology to pull it off. Then there is Krazy Kim and his new "toys" inherited from his late Daddy Dearest.


While Russia has returned to the status of a major player, as one of the two main "combatants" of the Cold War, they wouldn't be eager to use nuclear weapons, even on a limited scale, unless really pushed. But the rest may not be so restrained if they think it will be advantageous. Pakistan's mostly secular dictatorship could fall and be replaced by an Islamic government. North Korea is a wild card. Those are just a couple of examples.


Even with the Islamic terror attacks on the United States, 9/11 being the biggest and most destructive, there are plenty people are still living in la-la land, with their heads in the sand like the proverbial Ostrich. Sure, civilizational ending nuclear conflicts are not the biggest threat right now like it was during the Cold War (that will likely change in the future). But the threat of a limited nuclear exchange, either regionally or globally, is very real. The authorities and citizenry in the United States need to get on the same wavelength when it comes to readiness, especially in high threat areas. This little misadventure in Hawaii is a wake up call to improve our civil defense readiness, improve the system, and include the general public in these plans. We need to make the effort to do so, or the public and political establishment will sour on any kind of civil defense readiness, and that's when something terrible will happen, and we won't be ready.

If there are limited nukes launched the solution is to evacuate completely. If all-out war happens then yeah, we're all gunna die. You have shelters? So what? Whatever supplies you have aren't going to outlast the radiation, and whatever sanity people have is unlikely to even last long enough to deplete the supplies. Ever consider that dying in the nuclear apocalypse is quite possibly the better option?

And I like how you say that the Soviet Union continued spending right up until the their economy collapsed, gee, some might say those two things were related.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If there are limited nukes launched the solution is to evacuate completely. If all-out war happens then yeah, we're all gunna die. You have shelters? So what? Whatever supplies you have aren't going to outlast the radiation, and whatever sanity people have is unlikely to even last long enough to deplete the supplies.

Not quite true. You're forgetting that quite a few areas will be unscathed by any theoretical nuclear apocalypse, and even areas which do get hit will see a lot of people escape to non-radioactive areas.

Mass death and panic? Of course. Total annhilation? Not even close.

Speaking to shelters specifically, a good way to treat a shelter is as a temporary solution for a few weeks/months after a detonation. Then, after the initial radiation has subsided, you put on hazmat suits and book it for safety. You don't stay in the bunker for years and years. And unless the nuke exploded literally on top of the bunker you'll be fine*.

*fine being relative. You'll still suffer some radiation exposure and likely develop some cancer down the road, but it beats dying immediately.

Really, shelters should be designed to be quickly entered and contain supplies for a short period of them and also radiation suits and some form of transportation for anybody inside to leave the area quickly after the bombs have all detonated. We're not going to make Vaults and live like people from Fallout.

Nukes will only hit densely populated urban areas. Rural areas will likely be ignored completely, and nobody has enough nukes to waste on ensuring that everywhere gets irradiated to kill off the civilians fleeing into the wilderness.

 Grey Templar wrote:
and nobody has enough nukes to waste on ensuring that everywhere gets irradiated to kill off the civilians fleeing into the wilderness.

Both, russia and the US have enough nukes to do just that.

 von Hohenstein wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
and nobody has enough nukes to waste on ensuring that everywhere gets irradiated to kill off the civilians fleeing into the wilderness.

Both, russia and the US have enough nukes to do just that.

Yeah. Combine all weaponry they can about strip all life from thr planet quite well. Least kill some 99% of all people maybe.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If there are limited nukes launched the solution is to evacuate completely. If all-out war happens then yeah, we're all gunna die. You have shelters? So what? Whatever supplies you have aren't going to outlast the radiation, and whatever sanity people have is unlikely to even last long enough to deplete the supplies.

Not quite true. You're forgetting that quite a few areas will be unscathed by any theoretical nuclear apocalypse, and even areas which do get hit will see a lot of people escape to non-radioactive areas.

Mass death and panic? Of course. Total annhilation? Not even close.

Speaking to shelters specifically, a good way to treat a shelter is as a temporary solution for a few weeks/months after a detonation. Then, after the initial radiation has subsided, you put on hazmat suits and book it for safety. You don't stay in the bunker for years and years. And unless the nuke exploded literally on top of the bunker you'll be fine*.

*fine being relative. You'll still suffer some radiation exposure and likely develop some cancer down the road, but it beats dying immediately.

Really, shelters should be designed to be quickly entered and contain supplies for a short period of them and also radiation suits and some form of transportation for anybody inside to leave the area quickly after the bombs have all detonated. We're not going to make Vaults and live like people from Fallout.

Nukes will only hit densely populated urban areas. Rural areas will likely be ignored completely, and nobody has enough nukes to waste on ensuring that everywhere gets irradiated to kill off the civilians fleeing into the wilderness.

That's part of the point though, a dedicated emergency response infrastructure would better serve the people than spending a ton of money to build and maintain bunkers that may never get used. The only instance in which bunkers like that are the best solution is if there is nowhere to evacuate to.

I love the stupid myth of "Well I'll just flee to the countryside and live like a wild man!" when it comes to talking about nuclear war. Yeah, you and every knuckledragger think that.

The truth is if the blasts don't get you, the blackrain and fallout will, or every other mouthbreather desperate for food and clean water cause the forests can't support that kind of exodus. Especially with people who dont understand wildlife needs time to repopulate.

It's an ignorant thought that goes hand in hand with the stupid belief that "I'm badass enough to be Mad Max."

You won't be Max, you won't be Immortan Joe, you won't even be a warboy. You'll be scraped off someones boot cause you thought that water was safe or because you bled out after taking a panic shot.

lonestarr777 wrote:
I love the stupid myth of "Well I'll just flee to the countryside and live like a wild man!" when it comes to talking about nuclear war. Yeah, you and every knuckledragger think that.

The truth is if the blasts don't get you, the blackrain and fallout will, or every other mouthbreather desperate for food and clean water cause the forests can't support that kind of exodus. Especially with people who dont understand wildlife needs time to repopulate.

It's an ignorant thought that goes hand in hand with the stupid belief that "I'm badass enough to be Mad Max."

You won't be Max, you won't be Immortan Joe, you won't even be a warboy. You'll be scraped off someones boot cause you thought that water was safe or because you bled out after taking a panic shot.

''Life finds a way''

Look, there are estimated to only be around 15k nuclear weapons in existence right now. Even if all of them were Tsar bombs, which they are not, they could not blanket the entire land surface of the earth with lethal(for humans) doses of radiation, much less immediately scour all life from it. And nobody is going to waste a multi-billion dollar weapon ensuring that a few hundred square kilometers in South Dakota/Siberia/middleofnowhere are irradiated.

I'll do some calculations later for this tonight.

Nukes are very bad, but the extent of a nuclear Apocalypse has been hideously oversold by fear mongerers.

Even your own whitty answer implies that somebody will survive to shoot other survivors. I don't dispute that panic and chaos will lead to infighting among the survivors. But people being alive to fight each other kinda prooves my point.

Yes, you are technically correct. Not every literally single person will die if a total nuclear exchange between major powers happens. But we will go back to the stone age. Life will be nasty, brutish and short.

lonestarr777 wrote:
I love the stupid myth of "Well I'll just flee to the countryside and live like a wild man!" when it comes to talking about nuclear war. Yeah, you and every knuckledragger think that.

The truth is if the blasts don't get you, the blackrain and fallout will, or every other mouthbreather desperate for food and clean water cause the forests can't support that kind of exodus. Especially with people who dont understand wildlife needs time to repopulate.

It's an ignorant thought that goes hand in hand with the stupid belief that "I'm badass enough to be Mad Max."

You won't be Max, you won't be Immortan Joe, you won't even be a warboy. You'll be scraped off someones boot cause you thought that water was safe or because you bled out after taking a panic shot.

Well, uh, no one brought up that idea at all. Did a survivalist piss you off recently?

They don't need to totally blanket the earth with actual explosions to kill everybody, the radioactive dust blasted up into the atmosphere is what makes a full nuclear exchange an Extinction Level Event for humanity.

Fearmongering? Pff. Anyone who thinks they can survive the aftermath of total nuclear war is 100% certifiable grade-A nutso. Civilisation would end almost immediately, and anyone not killed in the blasts, by direct radiation exposure from the blasts, by fallout in the aftermath of the blasts, or by other "survivors" in the aftermath of the fallout would last until their stockpiled supplies ran out or they get a lethal dose from eating contaminated wildlife/drinking contaminated water depending on whether they're the Prepper or Mountain Man subset of kook.

And if we're talking about a limited exchange(highly unlikely given MAD; if anyone's ever stupid enough to actually kick things off the likelihood it wouldn't escalate to a total exchange is tiny) or a locally detonated device, all the "civil defence"/prepping stuff is just unnecessary - either you were in the target zone, in which case you're dead, or you weren't, in which case a well stocked pantry and some duct tape to seal up windows & doors if you're in the path of contaminated rain will be sufficient to see you through the immediate crisis.

There's no in-between "sweet spot" between it being a relatively localised problem and an ELE where all that camo hunting clothes and tins of spam and the HAM radio you have tucked away in some dank basement or decrepit cabin is going to be the difference between life & death.

Doomsday Prepping is LARP for right-libertarians.

From what studies there have been in the 21st century on the effects of full out nuclear exchange, they make surviving the exchange sound like the easiest part.

Its the problem of rapid climate shifts that might occur that would be the absolute deathblow. Agriculture is likely to be impossible for maybe as much as the immediate decade after the exchange. So even if the people with the knowledge survive they would likely starve to death because they can't grow food regardless. As for hunting, whatever is left of the animal population will suffer as much from the effects on the enviroment if not more. This would already decrease their reproduction, let alone being hunted into extinction by whoever survives and has to depend on the wildlife to survive for years. Plus like Yodhrin says, all the fallout has to be taken into account too, areas away from the initial blasts will quickly be blanketed in the aftermath as its spread by weather systems.

Post nuke world will be more The Road and less Fallout 4.

Sounds like a lot of people in this thread get all of their knowledge of nuclear weapons from post-apocalypse movies.
A full-out nuclear war would lead to a massive death toll unseen before in any war, but it would hardly be the end of times. Radiation decays relatively quickly (rule of 7:10 anyone?) and there is no solid scientific evidence that a nuclear war would lead to "nuclear winter" or any climate shifts that serious. Works of fiction like Fallout are completely unrealistic in how they portray the long-term effects of nuclear radiation.
The biggest threat of a nuclear war would be the disruption of food distribution system due to the destruction of cities and infrastructure. Historically, famine and plague have always been the biggest killers in war and other calamities, and for the survivors of a nuclear war, I doubt that would be any different. I think government should be doing more about storing food and medical supplies in case of emergency. Would be handy not just for the aftermath of a destructive (nuclear) war, but also in general with climate change becoming more disruptive. Food and medicine stockpiles could alleviate the worst disruptive effects so that populations have time to adapt.

There is a good chance that a lot of the problem from a nuclear war would probably be the massive amounts of radioactive dust floating around then getting into food supplies.

Potential air bursting nukes for that theoretical emp shutting down massive amounts of electrical systems.
though its theoretical and we probably wont find out anytime soon.

if anything dont live in the main cities or near military bases. and dont breath in the dust unless you want thyroid cancer.

there was a sci show episode about the dust from nuke testing above ground in the mid west reaching all the way out east as rain causing like 1000 cases of cancer and screwing up a ton of xray film packets or something like that.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Sounds like a lot of people in this thread get all of their knowledge of nuclear weapons from post-apocalypse movies.
A full-out nuclear war would lead to a massive death toll unseen before in any war, but it would hardly be the end of times. Radiation decays relatively quickly (rule of 7:10 anyone?) and there is no solid scientific evidence that a nuclear war would lead to "nuclear winter" or any climate shifts that serious. Works of fiction like Fallout are completely unrealistic in how they portray the long-term effects of nuclear radiation.
The biggest threat of a nuclear war would be the disruption of food distribution system due to the destruction of cities and infrastructure. Historically, famine and plague have always been the biggest killers in war and other calamities, and for the survivors of a nuclear war, I doubt that would be any different. I think government should be doing more about storing food and medical supplies in case of emergency. Would be handy not just for the aftermath of a destructive (nuclear) war, but also in general with climate change becoming more disruptive. Food and medicine stockpiles could alleviate the worst disruptive effects so that populations have time to adapt.

Now that is a good idea abd an effective preparation measure.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Well, uh, no one brought up that idea at all. Did a survivalist piss you off recently?

Actually, yes, yes one did. I know a fat chain smoking schmuck of a manchild who was dissapointed that the world didnt end. He thinks hes going to be some king because he owns a handful of guns and has convinced himself hes some hardass.

Greys downplaying the whole nuclear war just pushed me wrong and even now people are posting with essentially "Oh it would just be hell on earth, thats not so bad right?"

Its just pants on head maddening.