Hawaii prepares for nuclear attack, trying not to scare the daylights out of residents and tourists (Source The Washington Post)

As North Korean missiles soar over the Pacific and seismographs keep vigil for tremors in the vicinity of Pyongyang, officials in Hawaii are doing what they must: preparing for the possibility of a nuclear attack. But it’s a delicate task, especially when word gets out, as it did this week, about a “secret meeting” in which officials and legislators looked at slides on the probable impact of a nuclear blast at “at various altitudes above” Pearl Harbor, as Honolulu Civil Beat reported.

After all, it’s one thing to be sitting in New York or Washington and looking at those maps showing the range of North Korea’s ICBMs, and another entirely to be sitting in Honolulu and seeing “Hawaii” in small type just a smidge beyond the outer circle of destruction.

The only reason the meeting on Tuesday was closed, said one of the attendees, State Rep. Gene Ward (R), was to avoid worrying the public. On the other hand, he told The Washington Post, talk of nuclear preparedness is “probably more surreal to younger generations” who don’t remember a time when people had fallout shelters in their back yards. “Now it’s time to take it seriously,” he said, “not to be an alarmist but to be informing people.”