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Battle Creek natives share experience with emergency alert in Hawaii

Posted at 9:04 PM, Jan 13, 2018
and last updated 2018-01-15 11:28:14-05

HONOLULU, Hawaii-- Two West Michigan natives currently living in Hawaii received the emergency alert message sent to Hawaii residents Saturday morning alerting them of a ballistic missile headed for the state.

The followup message saying it was a false alarm came about 40 minutes later, so the two Battle Creek natives say many residents were in a state of panic up until that point. But Alex Yore and Dallas McCulloch say they aren't too shaken up about it.

"It woke me up just after 8 o'clock this morning," said Yore.

Yore got the message on his cell phone from his new home in Honolulu.

"It was a text message, but it was accompanied with an alert sound," said Yore. "Like the sound they play when they do the emergency test on tv."

For about 40 minutes, Yore expected the worst.

"I hoped it was a mistake, but it literally said this is not a drill and said it in all caps," said Yore. "I'm willing to take that seriously. Not much I can do to stop it, but I was prepared for that eventuality."

His friend Dallas McCulloch, also from Battle Creek, says he slept through the entire thing.

"I woke up around 10 and checked my messages and at 8:15 it's like 'Yo missiles are coming your way this is not a drill' and I'm like, okay, and then the next message is like 'Oh my bad bro,' basically is what it said."

It's safe to say McCulloch wasn't as stressed about it as some other people might have been.

"It's a pretty serious situation," said McCulloch. "I assume there's probably a lot of people that have more to live for than us. I don't want to die, but I'm like a single 31-year old dude, I'm not as worried as most people are."

So for these two, it's business as usual.

"It's 81 degrees, the swell is ripping and we're going for a bike ride," said McCulloch. "How is it in Michigan?"

Hawaii's emergency management agency has since said that a single individual sent the alert out by mistake. They've since said they're going to process this and study to make sure this doesn't happen again.