SIMPSON BAY--The Island took part in the annual Caribe Wave Lantex 16 Caribbean Tsunami Warning Exercise on Thursday. The National Disaster Management Organization on Sint Maarten, through the Office of Disaster Management (ODM) participated in a regional exercise. This took place at Simpson Bay Resorts. Staff and management participated in the drills.
ODM focused on information exchange and cooperation with French Saint Martin along with the physical evacuation of the lower parts of a beach front resort. The purpose of the exercise was to assist tsunami preparedness efforts in the Caribbean and adjacent regions, including US and Canadian east coasts. Dummy warning messages were issued to test communications with Tsunami Warning Focal Points and Emergency Management Organizations within the region.
The exercise scenario focused on a powerful earthquake just north of Venezuela that triggered a tsunami throughout the Caribbean region. The effects on Sint Maarten/Saint-Martin was a tsunami wave with a height of maximum three meters, as well as a second earthquake off the coast of the Dominican Republic an hour later. This meant all beachfront properties would be affected under the exercise scenario.
The resort responded with great enthusiasm and fully cooperated with the exercise. ODM thanked the resorts’ management for their participation. The Intergovernmental Coordination Group for Tsunami and Other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE EWS) of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the US National Tsunami Hazard mitigation Programme, were the entities involved in carrying out the tsunami exercise on March 17.
The tsunami warning exercise was conducted to assist tsunami preparedness efforts throughout the Caribbean region. Recent tsunamis, such as those in the Indian Ocean (2004), Samoa (2009), Haiti and Chile (2010), and Japan (2011), attest to the importance of proper planning for tsunami response.
