Terror in Paradise: 'I Got the Hawaii Missile Message and Prepared to Die'

"WTF!" My friend Jon Letman in Hawaii tells us about the terrifying false alarm he and his wife and son just received that their island, Kauai, was being bombed.

"BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL," read the emergency alert received on their phones.

Writes Jon at Daily Beast:

Somewhere deep in sleep, dreaming I am at work… why did everyone leave their phones in the office?… then I feel my wife's foot tickling me… stop it… then: ALERT! LOUD! What's that? Turn off your alarm, I think.

My wife leans over and shows me her phone, which displays a dull black and grey EMERGENCY ALERT reading "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

It's 8:08 on a Saturday morning. I bolt out up and out of bed, think what everyone else across Hawaii must be thinking: "WTF?!"

Instinctively I rush to the kitchen, passing my 13-year-old son who is sitting on the couch in the living room, holding his phone (typical) presumably playing a game. I rush to check my work phone on the kitchen counter, scrolling through Twitter to see similar disbelief from other people on Oahu.

Read more [GIF courtesy Daily Beast].