HONOLULU (AP) — It was a beautiful Hawaii morning: nice breeze, blue skies, birds chirping. Then terror struck.

We were up early, my daughter and I, because this Saturday morning was her first day of ice skating lessons, a day we had been talking about and looking forward to for months.

We were also having construction done in our Honolulu apartment, which sits atop a hill overlooking the Nuuanu Valley and, in the distance, Pearl Harbor. So, I had been frantically clearing out the living room and covering our things with sheets so they wouldn't be smothered in sawdust.

We got her skating clothes on and tacked up the living room, and I was just about to hop in the shower when, around 8:07 a.m., my phone started the aggressive, long pulsating tone that normally accompanies a flash flood or other warning.

Emergency Alert: "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press correspondent Caleb Jones was with his daughter at their Honolulu home when state emergency officials mistakenly sent out a cellphone alert warning of a missile heading for Hawaii. He recounts the panic that he, like other islanders, felt not knowing for several minutes if the threat was real.

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"Not a drill?" I thought.

I looked out over the valley toward Honolulu International Airport and Pearl Harbor and envisioned a nuclear blast spreading over the landscape and funneling up the Pali Highway and into my thin-walled home. It's literally a direct line to the most likely military target. There was no concrete structure, no basement, not even an interior room that would make sense to wait in. I wasn't prepared with water or food. I panicked.

As a journalist, I knew what officials recommended. I have covered the drills, the warnings, the siren tests. According to emergency officials, it could take between 12 and 15 minutes for a missile to strike. I knew more than probably most people in Hawaii: Shelter in place, take cover, tune in and await instructions.

But fight or flight kicked in. All the nuclear threat models that state officials run use Pearl Harbor and its adjoining military base as ground zero. I also knew there wouldn't be any rush hour traffic on a Saturday morning. I chose flight, which in retrospect may have been the wrong decision. But maybe not.

"We're going," I thought.

I had 12 minutes to get my daughter out of the blast zone and...read more at SFGATE