In the alert’s aftermath, some seek comfort in guns, MREs and supplies

This week at Wahiawa’s Hawaii Tactical Outfitter, manager Sharra Adams has been selling iodine tablets to purify contaminated water and military-style MREs, or meals ready to eat.

She doesn’t carry surplus military gas masks, but she’s been fielding inquires for those as well.

At city offices, officials have received 23 requests from groups to give disaster preparedness presentations — including from a school and two condo associations; and there have been 20 additional requests to train people to become “Community Emergency Response Team” volunteers through a free, 22-hour course.

“In an average week we normally get one to three requests for public presentations,” said John Cummings, spokesman for the city’s Department of Emergency Management.

But this has hardly been an average week.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s botched warning of an imminent missile attack that triggered panic across the state, people who lived through it continue to cope in myriad ways.

While the threat was bogus, “what is real is it caused us acute stress, a huge amount of stress, in a short time,” said Trisha Kaji­mura, executive director of Mental Health America Hawaii. “Stress causes a biologic response, and that’s what we’re all dealing with now. It’s really important for people not to ignore their feelings and any anxiety it produces. It can cause us to be irritable, angry and worried. We need to try to cope with that in a productive way by talking to family members, talking about preparedness. Definitely feeling more prepared is empowering for people.”

Two state senators — Clarence Nishihara and Breene Harimoto — and two state representatives — Roy Takumi and Greg Takayama — on Thursday announced a town hall meeting on emergency preparedness scheduled for 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. tonight at Pearl City Highlands Elementary School’s cafeteria.

“The Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) will discuss what the agency is doing to prepare our state for the nuclear threat, what efforts are being conducted between the counties, and the steps it is taking to educate the public and our community,” the legislators said in a statement.

City Councilwoman Kymberly Pine also announced a free emergency preparedness workshop for 5 p.m. Thursday at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands in Kapolei in partnership with the Kanehili Community Association and Security Watch Group.

“If the missile alert were real, would you and your family have been ready?” Pine asked in a statement announcing the workshop. “Saturday’s missile alert scare left many of us wondering and seeking guidance on what our community should do in the case of a real emergency.”

Sales of survival-related gear jumped about 10 percent at Hawaii Tactical Outfitter since Saturday’s missile scare.

“People are talking about it,” Adams said. “Most people who come in are asking about survival things: water tablets, survival kits, water filtration.”

Handgun sales have jumped 25 percent at Honolulu Firearms &Range since Saturday’s bogus alert of an imminent missile attack — “and probably 90 percent of that was women,” said general manager Rocky Davis.

About half of the post-missile-scare sales at Honolulu Firearms &Range are by people who have never bought a gun before, Davis said.

And nearly all of the sales to new owners — or 90 percent — are to women buying 9 mm or other small-caliber handguns, which start around $700, plus another $220 for mandatory firearm training they must undergo before taking home their purchase.

“The day of the warning was one of our busiest days for guns and people signing up for training and taking classes,” Davis said. “We’ve had real good days since that day. We’ve definitely seen an increase in business after the false warning. We’ve had a lot of ladies coming in asking how they could buy guns. They’re first-timers, people who haven’t owned guns.”

And they’re not just looking, because they have to pay for their handguns in advance before taking the six-hour class.

“They purchased the gun that day but cannot take possession” until the training, Davis said.

Manoa publicist Jennifer Pang estimates that since August she’s spent more than $400 on Amazon purchases designed to survive a nuclear attack, including four Israeli-style civilian gas masks ($29.73 each) for her family, along with the book “Nuclear War Survival Skills.”

When President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un started tweeting at one another, “I was caught up in a moment of stress,” Pang said. “I’m not the only weirdo. I saw the gas masks at my girlfriend’s house. She had four.”

After Saturday’s missile alert, Pang went back on Amazon and bought a first-aid kit and reinforced her supplies of dehydrated food and other items.

“Other than the gas masks and iodine tabs, in a hurricane or tsunami or even an earthquake, which we’ve had, this stuff is important because people will go nuts,” Pang said. “But I’ll never buy a gun because I have more hope for humanity and the people of Hawaii, because the people of Hawaii are good.”

>> For the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s full coverage of Hawaii’s missile alert scare, go to 808ne.ws/Hawaiimissilescare.