Alerting the public quickly, clearing the beaches and advising tourists to move to the upper floors of hotels, would be part of the Cayman Islands’ response in the event of a tsunami in the region.
Hazard management experts took part in a Caribbean-wide exercise last week to test the readiness of territories in the event of a tsunami. As part of the exercise officials had to show how they would respond to a fictitious earthquake measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale, 90 kilometres off the coast of Aruba.
The Cayman Islands Hazard Management team put out a dummy bulletin to local media at 8.50am on 20 March, as part of the exercise, alerting people of the quake and warning a tsunami was expected to hit Grand Cayman at 9.57pm.
The initial bulletin asked people to evacuate coastal areas by 9.20am.
A second bulletin added: A tsunami warning is in effect for all coastal areas in Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Residents and visitors should immediately evacuate all beaches and low lying areas, and head inland or evacuate vertically to higher floors in multistory concrete buildings.
The bulletin warned of a wave height of 1 to 3 feet and cautioned the tsunami could have an impact on the coastline.
McCleary Frederick, director of Hazard Management Cayman Islands, said communication would be key in the event of a real tsunami. He said depending on the location of the earthquake, there could be a small amount of time to respond.
He said the hazard management team was in talks with LIME and Digicel about setting up an emergency e-mail or text message alert to be combined with news releases in local media. He said the fundamental difference between planning for a hurricane and planning for a tsunami was reaction time.
We have strong plans for a hurricane but we have done less work on these quick onset disasters, he said. In this scenario there would be no time to think about securing property. It would be all about preservation of life and personal safety.
He said the exercise had provided some food for thought and his team would now produce a clear action plan, highlighting individual areas of responsibility.
Issues like how to handle cruise ship passengers on shore or crowds of tourists arriving at the airport have to be clarified, he said.
Omar Afflick, deputy director at HMCI, said: The key thing is public information management. Even though the risk of a tsunami is rather low you can’t be complacent.
Geographical features like the Cayman Trench make the possibility of a large scale tsunami affecting the Cayman Islands extremely unlikely.
Last week’s readiness exercise organised under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) involved 30 member states and 15 territories in the Caribbean and surrounding region.
Even though the risk of a tsunami is rather low you can’t be complacent. ?OMAR AFFLICK, deputy director, Hazard Management Cayman Islands