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On Monday around lunchtime, some people in downtown Honolulu heard a big, reverberating boom. And then another. And another. Read more

On Monday around lunchtime, some people in downtown Honolulu heard a big, reverberating boom. And then another. And another.

Dogs howled. Buildings shook. Children on happy field trips to see the Christmas decorations in Honolulu Hale started screaming.

Thankfully, it wasn’t an attack. Or thunder. Or some sort of explosive mishap raining down on the city.

It was Gov. David Ige being sworn in to a second term.

So now we all know what that sounds like.

There is nothing unprecedented about a 10-cannon salute at the inauguration ceremony for a Hawaii governor. John Waihee, for example, had cannons at his first inauguration in 1986. But David Ige is not John Waihee, a politician who, for all his polish, still comes off like he could scrap if the situation warranted.

David Ige and cannons don’t go together. You don’t see one and then automatically think of the other. And coming not even a year away from the false you-know-what scare, the cannons were perhaps not the best choice.

A salute with military cannons seems a bit much to honor the second term of a governor who didn’t accomplish much during his first term. This maybe was more like a “Hawaii Pono‘i”-and-pau event.

A series of cannon blasts echoing off the sides of downtown buildings may not alone be terrifying, but coming in the context of increased global tensions, our era’s ever­-present awareness of terrorism and the PTSD of the false you-know-what scare, the sounds really shook some people for a moment there. Not “snowflakes,” not scaredy-cats. Real people who like their lives.

“It was so loud and deep that it shook the ground and nearly knocked me over,” said one government worker who didn’t want to be identified because, ah, government worker, yeah? No like get in trouble. “Two women in front of me stopped in their tracks and you could tell by the look on their faces that they were close to panicking, like, ‘What the hell was that and do we duck for cover?’”

Downtown Honolulu is often host to booming, bang-up action when TV shows like “Hawaii Five-0” shoot on location. But when that happens, there are signs posted well in advance with messages like “Warning: Simulated gunfire Sunday from 8 a.m.-noon” or words to that effect, and local media and area residents are told days prior to expect some exciting noise.

That sort-of happened with Ige’s inauguration, but clearly the message didn’t go wide enough because many folks felt their hearts skip a beat. Again. Some proactive communication directly with the public would have kept the cannons from being a problem. Just when you think that office learns its lesson … .

In hindsight, maybe Ige should have held a simple, understated, no-boom ceremony in his office, given a short speech that amounted to, “OK, let’s get to work,” and then gotten to work.

Meanwhile, the state’s monthly test of the emergency sirens was canceled that day because the noise would have marred the governor’s inauguration.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.