New Regional Tsunami Warning System Put to the Test

New Regional Tsunami Warning System Put to the Test
(Source: The Antigua Observer)

The efficacy of a newly developed regional tsunami warning system is being tested in Antigua and across the Caribbean in a two-day exercise, which began yesterday. The activity, dubbed Caribe Wave 11, will assess the tsunami and other coastal hazards warning system for the Caribbean overall, a release from the National Office of Disaster Services said. Organizers of the exercise said countries in the Caribbean will receive an alert concerning a fake earthquake of 7.6 magnitude off the coast of the US Virgin Islands.,

The activity will involve key agencies to include the Defense Force, Police, Met Office, APUA, Ministries of Tourism, Education, Health, Labor, Antigua & Barbuda Chamber of Commerce and the Antigua Hotels & Tourist Association.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) is spearheading the effort. It is intended to test effectiveness and strengthen alert, monitoring and warning systems among all the emergency management organizations, national focal points, weather forecast offices and national coast guard regionally.

NODS Director Philmore Mullin explained the activity would also be identifying the most vulnerable areas in Antigua and the best channels through which to relay emergency information locally in the event of a tsunami.

He noted that in Antigua & Barbuda, The Met Office is the official agency with responsibility for receiving warnings while the National Office of Disaster Services is the designated focal point.

“However, because we don’t have a 24-hour operation, that responsibility is handed back to the Met Office,” Mullin said yesterday on Observer Radio’s morning show, OBSERVER AM.

“What we’re doing presently is that we’re working to identify definitively those communities that are highly vulnerable to inundation and tsunami impact. We have developed a map that’s not very accurate because in the absence of … information, we are not able to gauge realistically or with some amount of preciseness the communities that are most at risk.”

The NODS director added, after a series of extrapolations and referencing they identified several communities that are considered extremely vulnerable.

“The preliminary map that we’ve developed has identified St John’s, Point, Villa, Gray’s Farm – those coastal communities around the country that are fairly flat and low-lying. All of those are vulnerable,” Mullin said.

Those communities would be among the first to receive a tsunami warning and to be advised to move to higher grounds, Mullin said, adding that preliminary estimates are that a major tsunami could impact in excess of 30,000 people.

“If we use a worst case scenario, we’re not going to have many shelters available,” he said. “If we use a low to moderate impact, we believe there are sufficient facilities to absorb those that would be rendered homeless.”

Yesterday’s activities comprised mainly briefing exercises. Today systems will be put to the test. “We’re now going to test not just what’s on paper but the modalities to get the information from point A to point B and how point B deals with that information,” Mullin said. “We will document very diligently that process because at the end, we need to have an overview… of the document as it is now.

“The notice will go out and we will physically contact the key stakeholders by the same means that we’d contact them if something happens, to verify that those systems are working. We’d walk through that process and make sure that all the stakeholders understand the importance of the roles and responsibilities,” Mullin added.

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