It's an understatement to say a false emergency alert of a missile headed to Hawaii Saturday morning caused a lot of undue stress for citizens, visitors and their family members.

Jenn Clevinger (formerly Jenn Diguer) is from Swift Current but moved to Hawaii four years ago, and her family experienced the episode first hand in the state's capital of Honolulu, on Oahu island.

Her husband Nathan is with the US Military and is a Korean linguist.

When the notification came via text to her phone at 8:07 a.m., Clevinger said adrenaline kicked in and she started making coffee. It took around 40 minutes before the alert was called off.

They wouldn't have had time to go anywhere, even though highways were full of cars making a break for it.

Not wanting to panic her mom, who lives in Rush Lake, Clevinger sent a text saying she loved her, but didn't mention the alert.

"My husband was right behind me when I got [the alert], and he said, 'Hey, what's going on? I didn't get that message.' And then his phone started blowing up, and we could hear the kids' phone blowing up too. I've got a 17 year old and a 16 year old. So went upstairs, got the kids out of bed, brought them downstairs immediately, sat them on the couch. We waited, because Nathan's phone was going off; it was his command calling. They were doing a full recall right off the bat. Then you could hear, in the background, sirens going - which are our warning sirens. But the thing is that whenever you get a warning, such as 'you have to seek shelter,' you've got 15 to 20 minutes. That's it. There's nowhere to go. You just take cover in your house.

"My adrenaline was so high, the only thing that I could do was make coffee. It was like my brain did not know what else to do, but it knew how to make coffee. So I went over to the machine, made coffee, sat there staring at my husband waiting because he's on the phone with his command the whole time waiting for his instruction, and trying to find out what's going on."

With Pearl Harbor being a naval base - and one that's been a target in the past - Clevinger said that's something on their minds.

"We know we're a primary target, because the mainland is too far away for missiles to reach. So because we're closer, and because of the history here, and because it is Pearl Harbor and it's the United States' largest naval base, we are a prime target. So people take it seriously."

Another from Swift Current

Jenn Clevinger wasn't the only one from southwest Saskatchewan in Hawaii during the mayhem-filled Saturday.

Swift Current's Shannon Peacock also contacted Swift Current Online today and shared what it was like for her.

"Well initially we thought probably it was a hoax, but then when everyone around us was getting the same text message, we thought, 'Okay, this can't be a hoax.' And then panic sets in."

Peacock said it took over half an hour before they found out it was a false alarm, and even then it wasn't exactly a sense of relief as everyone was left wondering what happened.

She said they're in Maui, and in the 15 to 20 minutes they would have had to prepare there'd be nowhere for them to go. They, along with many others, didn't know what to do. But they saw one retired member of the military that worked with nuclear stuff go down a few levels in a parking garage with half a dozen bottles of water and post up.