News

The 2019 Annual Hurricane Exercise takes place on May 23^rd and 24^th. ‘Hurricane Kali’ has been designed to test the National Hurricane Plan and those involved in the national response mechanism.

The exercise commences at 3 pm on May 23^rd with a meeting of the National Hazard Management Council in the ground floor conference room at the Government Administration Building. As part of the simulation, the Cayman Islands will be placed under a hurricane ‘Alert’ at 10 am on Wednesday 22 May in anticipation of a possible impact. ‘Hurricane Kali’ is a table top exercise focusing on the response and recovery activities following an “All Clear.” The use of various injects will test the various support teams and examine the overall response and recovery mechanisms.

HMCI will simulate activation of the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) to give participants an opportunity to reacquaint themselves with NEOC operations. This year the exercise format is less formal, enabling participants to consider and discuss how they would react to various injects and scenarios.

The NEOC structure includes 17 different Emergency Support Teams (ESTs) with a range of responsibilities such as debris management, search and rescue, emergency shelters, volunteer agencies, etc. The exercise will encourage the various subcommittees to look at how they would roll out aspects of their own emergency plans in response to the scenarios they are faced with.

The exercise runs through the entire day on May 24^th and concludes with the review of lessons learned and feedback and recommendations from participants will be used to update the National Plan.