General Information
Tsunami exercises and drills are excellent ways in which to increase tsunami preparedness and awareness within coastal communities. Regular exercises are essential to maintain the operational readiness of response agencies for the real event, and are especially important because of the infrequent occurrence of tsunamis. Exercises can evaluate one’s ability to respond to a local, regional, or ocean wide tsunami. Exercises can test communications, review agency standard operating procedures, and promote emergency preparedness.
At the local level, stakeholder agencies, community organizations, and citizens groups can work together to organize and conduct drills for the evacuation of low-lying areas after a tsunami warning is issued by local authorities. Tsunami drills by schools are effective ways to educate school children on tsunamis so that they can recognise the tsunami natural warning signs, and know what to do if a tsunami occurs or local authorities issue a tsunami alert of an impending tsunami. When the media is invited to cover and participate in drills, tsunami awareness of communities is increased as a whole.
Types of Exercises
There are many types of exercises and drills. Authorities can choose to exercise parts of the response, or simulate an entire end-to-end warning and evacuation scenario. Similarly, exercises can be conducted only within departments or organizations, or involve entire communities, states, provinces, a country, a region (many countries comprising an entire ocean basin) or be convened internationally. Finally, exercises can be conducted as simply orientation workshops that inform on what to expect, as slow discussion simulations between responders, or as fully involved, real-time exercises.
How to Conduct Tsunami Exercises
Given the critical importance of exercises, UNESCO/IOC has included guidance within its Manuals and Guides Technical Series, entitled “How to Plan, Conduct and Evaluate UNESCO/IOC Tsunami Wave Exercises .” The purpose of this Guideline is to provide a set of generic and consistent advice on exercise development, management and evaluation that will apply to both exercise coordinators and exercise players (tsunami service providers and warning centres), as well as disaster management agencies. The guidance can be used internationally by all Intergovernmental Coordination Groups (ICGs) and provides a step-by-step approach for conducting national to local tsunami exercises in the context of the UNESCO/IOC-coordinated Tsunami Wave exercises. UNESCO/IOC recommends that exercise planners use this guide as a basis for developing and conducting Tsunami Wave exercises.
CARIBE WAVE/CARIBE WAVE LANTEX Exercises
The Fifth Session of the ICG/CARIBE EWS held in Managua, Nicaragua, 15–17 March 2010 decided to conduct a joint CARIBE Wave 2011 and LANTEX 2011 exercise. This was the inaugural regional exercise and variations have been conducted since 2011 with the regional tsunami exercise has now become an annual event on the tsunami preparedness calendar within the Caribbean and its adjacent regions.
Events, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean, 2009 Samoa, 2010 Haiti and Chile, and the 2011 Japan earthquakes and tsunamis, attest to the importance of proper planning for tsunami response. The purpose of the exercise is to improve Tsunami Warning System effectiveness along the Caribbean coasts. The exercise provides an opportunity for emergency management organizations throughout the Caribbean to exercise their operational lines of communications, review their tsunami response procedures, and promote tsunami preparedness. Regular exercising of response plans is critical to maintain readiness for an emergency. This is particularly true for tsunamis, which are infrequent but high impact events. Every Caribbean emergency management organization (EMO) is encouraged to participate.
Regional organisations including the ICG/CARIBE-EWS and its Secretariat, CTIC, CTWP, the Coordination Centre for Prevention of Natural Disasters in Central America (CEPREDENAC), CDEMA, NOAA, and the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), EMIZ Antilles contribute to planning and execution of the exercise.
