Hawaii officials last Tuesday held a secret meeting to discuss how to help the public prepare for a possible North Korea nuclear attack, the Honolulu Civil Beat reported.
“Now it’s time to take it seriously,” said state Rep. Gene Ward, “not to be an alarmist but to be informing people.”
Tensions between North Korea and the U.S. continue to escalate, with President Donald Trump last week threatening to “totally destroy North Korea.”
North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong Ho on Saturday responded with a speech at the UN General Assembly where he said Pyongyang possesses a hydrogen bomb that can be coupled with an intercontinental ballistic missile and will be ready to use if needed.
A North Korean ballistic missile could reach Hawaii in less than 20 minutes, according to Denny Roy, a research fellow at the East-West Center whose focus is North Korea and nuclear weapons.
“Whenever the mainstream news reprises the issue of North Korea working toward a nuclear [intercontinental ballistic missile] and threatening to use it against the United States, people in Hawaii get nervous,” he said.
The meeting in Hawaii, according to a copy of a memo obtained by the Civil Beat, was “regarding recent regional military threats and the planned responses to such events.”
“It seems to me that primal instincts are going to just overwhelm nearly everybody,” state Sen. Gil Riviere said during one part of the meeting. He then repeated the advice given out recently by the EMA to,“Get inside, stay inside, stay tuned.”
“People are just going to be fleeing, they’re not going to stay in,” Riviere added.