Wednesday, March 23 – Today the Virgin Islands joined other localities in the Northwest Atlantic as a participant in CARIBE WAVE ‘11, an earthquake and tsunami response exercise. According to the scenario, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake occurred about 60 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The location of the epicenter was 18.2 N, 65.3 W. The depth of the earthquake was approximately 56 miles.
This exercise provided an opportunity for individuals, organizations and mainly schools to test their plans and procedures, operational lines of communications and to promote earthquake/tsunami awareness and preparedness.
The DDM wishes to convey heartfelt thanks to all agencies, both Government and Private Sector, which participated in this year’s exercise. We wish to especially thank the many volunteers who assisted the Department both in the planning and execution phases of the exercise. Exercise CARIBE WAVE, was carried out Territory-wide to include the Sister Islands as well as the boating community.
The Department acknowledges the many lessons learned with regards to the notification process and we welcome any feedback which the public may wish to offer. One manner in which this can be done is to log on to DDM’s website at www.bviddm.com and complete the public opinion survey on the exercise. This survey will be collated and used to assist the Department and other agencies in improving their alert and response capabilities.
