Experiencing A Missile Scare – Ku – Medium

Article by an American in Japan.
I woke up at 6:04 am today. So did most of northeastern Japan.
And as I fumbled for the alert’s “dismiss” button, I gleaned the word “missile” in the message and my heart sank. I frantically reopened the alert to read the text.
Missile launch. Missile launch.
Anyone living in the region or following international news is surely aware of the growing tensions between the US and its allies, and North Korea. Threats have been issued and gobbled up on both sides like candy, with seemingly little regard to potential consequences. Just this past Saturday, three test missiles were fired into the Sea of Japan, the then-latest act of aggression on the part of the DPRK.
It turns out that my reading comprehension in my second language of seven years falls apart when the word “missile” appears. At the time, I only pieced bits of the rest of the message together:
It seems (a) missile has been fired from North Korea. Please retreat to a sturdy building or underground.
This unfamiliar alarm, and the source of this message, turned out to be the work of an emergency system I hadn’t heard of before today. J-Alert is a system that was put into place in 2007 as a way to quickly notify the public of crisis situations, such as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. It is rarely used — it’s rarely a necessity.
By 6:06 am I was having a hysteric breakdown on the floor of my bedroom. Utterly embarrassing for a grown woman, but perhaps an understandable reaction to the news that suggested missiles were heading for the country and we might not live to see the afternoon.