Hazard Management Cayman Islands (HMCI) will be participating in CARIBE WAVE 24 today Thursday, March 21, as part of the annual tsunami exercise of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

HMCI will use the Caribe Wave exercise to test communication and dissemination of tsunami messages and information from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre to the Cayman Islands National Tsunami Contacts and National Tsunami Focal Points. HMCI will also test satellite phone technology to contact the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.

Additionally, the recent acquisition of the NOAA Tsunami Inundation Model (with the support of Caribbean Tsunami Information Center, USAID, NOAA and others) represents a pivotal moment for our risk assessment capacity (for the tsunami threat), and it will lead to significant changes in our preparedness strategies. 

HMCI Director, Dani Coleman noted, “We do not know when a tsunami will hit Cayman, but we do know that there will be little notice and this puts a big responsibility on HMCI to plan, develop standard operating procedures and practice through exercises like Caribe Wave. This also puts responsibility on every member of the public to know how to respond and to download the National Emergency Notification App(www.NENS.gov.ky;).”