Incoming missiles!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

North Korea apparently launched a ballistic missile which should (by now) have come down somewhere around Hokkaido, where I live.

The kids had just left for school, I was getting some coffee and wondering if I should prepare for classes or read the Dope and I get an alert on my phone to take shelter immediately, followed by phone calls from my wife, who is in Tokyo now, and other parents.

My son was walking to school with a friend, and his mother went and got them and brought them back, but I pointed out that concrete schools were as good as anywhere.

I assume that it’s a test of the missile and not a nuclear strike, and I also assume that small towns with declining populations are not the most likely target, even if we do have a couple of convenience stores and a really nice hot spring.

I have been in far greater personal danger before, and I know other Dopers were in actual combat and such, but this was a first for me to get the message “Incoming!” That wakes you up.

(And I’m not sure if this is mundane or miscellaneous , pointless or personal, but for some reason I just had to share it.)

2

This really isn’t very mundane at all. It is horrible for Japan and very scary for everyone.

I hope your kids are OK, processing something like that can be hard.

3

There are millions of North Koreans who’d kill for a (stocked) convenience store nearby their home. Your small town might be more of a target than you at first expect. :slight_smile:

Trying to make light of a bad situation. At the same time, the usual overwrought handwringing in the USA in the face of danger can do far more to traumatize your kids than noisy threats from NK can.

4

Fortunately (IMHO) I was here and not my wife. She tends to worry too much, although perhaps I worry too little.

When the other mother brought my son back, he could tell I wasn’t particuarly worried. He’s 12, Beta-chan is 14 so they can understand risks. We’ll talk more tonight, but I think they should be ok.

Damn! I didn’t think about that! Moving to a small town with only a couple of convenience store was a cultural shock for us, but at leas we have them. (Until the real attack comes.)

It’s all good! Just a moment of “hmmmm, any danger?” before deciding that reading the Dope trumps anything short of real war.

I’ve got to get over to the debate on the most important warship to give my opinion before we get nuked.

5

Snark and joking aside, I hope that you and yours stay safe, although I’m fully aware that it’s far too close to the usual US response “hopes and prayers” when some nutso with a gun shoots up a bunch of unrelated individuals.

For those who want an English language version of the report, I provide the following:

Japanese authorities later retracted the alert, saying an emergency warning system had made an erroneous prediction the missile would fall near the island.

Doesn’t mean @TokyoBayer didn’t have reason to worry now or in the future, but at least for the moment, the convenience store seems safe from being targeted for nuclear devestation.

6

The loss of the TokyoBayer family would be sad, but the loss of a convience store would be a tragedy for this community!

7

Your opinion might later be adjusted to one of these:

Again trying to make semi-light of a semi-bad situation.

It’s important for everyone in most of the civilized world to realize that despots with WMD have had them aimed at your house for 60 years now. The world’s despots are seemingly extra-despotic just now, but that stuff comes in waves. We’ve been here before. Not to say this time will end happy, or that a mistake won’t eventually result in a mass death event someplace.

But this crap ain’t new. Far from it.

8

Yes! I love it.

Actually, there should be little danger here. Living in Taiwan, we weren’t that far from a military base so any threat of a nuclear attack would have been greater there.

We’re about 10 meters above sea level here so for (unlikely) disasters then a tsunami is more likely than random attacks on Seico Mart.

(random pic from the net)

Both of my ex-wife’s parents survived American firebombings of Tokyo as children so I don’t want to compare this little thing to anything really serious. It’s just we have to convince the mad power in Korth Korea to launch possible nukes after I have my morning Joe.

9

Update:

It looks like somethin the natives have experienced occationally so it’s not that big of a deal for most everyone. Even the students were fine.

It did make an interesting lesson on weather.

“Today’s weather is partly coudy with a chance of falling missiles.”

10

Hopefully it wasn’t on a powder day at the resorts.

11

Given North Korean tech, I suspect that which city it was aimed at was a completely irrelevant consideration in where it ended up landing. They’re probably happy with just “somewhere in the general vicinity of Japan”.

12

From the article:

Those were my thoughts as well.

We want more money for defense! Let’s scare everyone!

13

24 hours later we’re still awaiting your contribution to that thread. If I hadn’t seen you posting here since, I’d have been worried about you. :wink:

14

I’ve had something worse than an incoming nuke. My wife is gone for eight days and I’m single dadding it. My hat goes off to single, working parents who do this all the time.

I’m still thinking about that thread. I’m got a very narrow focus of interest in history so my contributions may be a hijack.

So what you are saying that instead of hitting Tokyo, they may just nuke a small town on the coast of Hokkaiko?

And that makes me feel better, how?

:wink:

15

Yikes!

16

That would be singularly stupid, since they would be guaranteeing their absolute extinction without the satisfaction of a high body count.

I wish I were kidding, but I’m not.

17

Or miss the islands entirely and just nuke a random section of ocean somewhere off the Japanese coast.

Which is, of course, how you awaken Godzilla.

18

I believe that is how you CREATE godzilla.

“Godzilla is awakened by mankind’s nuclear weapons tests”

19

The good news is that Rodan really doesn’t like Godzilla. And Rodan will be awakened by NK’s second miss.

Even better news, I’ve seen newsreels of Godzilla stomping a lot of Japanese cities. He seems to avoid small towns. So you’re safe. Especially if you’re far from Lake Biwa. He uses that place like a birdbath.

20

Great. @Chronos has me in danger of falling nukes, @gnoitall is pointing out NK’s actions would be stupid, but without any hint if that is useful information or not so finally we’re getting some better news.

I will be crossing off Lake Biwa from any potential trip, just to be on the safe side.

I can see why there are so many Japanese kids refusing to go to school these days. . .