A few years ago, Natalie and I were vacationing in Hawaii when we heard a crazy loud alarm, like the one you would hear in an old World War II film. It was, well, alarming, but it turns out it was their monthly Civil Defense siren test. I wish someone at our hotel had told us because we were ready to run for the hills, thinking it was a tsunami warning. I took video with my phone (see below) to give you an idea of how loud it was!

YouTube video

I later found out that the whole state of Hawaii has a test at 11:45am on the first business day of the month—and thanks to the tensions with North Korea, they’ve just added another test, which begins right after the first. I called the number on their press release and the representative said they haven’t announced if they will do the second test again next month, but she assumes they will. I guess it all depends on whether tensions are still high.

The point of this tip is to warn you that if you are in Hawaii on the first business day of the month and you hear a blaring, steady alert signal for 50 seconds, followed by a 10-second pause and then a wailing “attack warning” signal for 50 seconds, you should not be alarmed.

For more information, I recommend checking out the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency‘s Twitter account (@Hawaii_EMA) since they send out warnings there.

H/T to KTLA.

Hawaii monthly alarm tests

 

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2 Comments On "Hawaii Has Monthly Alarm Tests and It Just Added a New One"
  1. Michele Leanderson|

    Wondering – how do you know if the Hawaii alarms are a test or “for real”?

    1. Johnny Jet|

      I guess if it’s the first business day of the month and at 11am it’s a test. Everything else isn’t.

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