CARIBE WAVE 11/ LANTEX 11 tsunami exercise

Tsunami exercise CARIBE WAVE 11/ LANTEX 11 is being conducted. A exercise Caribbean-Wide Tsunami Watch Message was issued at 1302Z 23 MAR 2011. This was relayed by the West Coast/Alaska and NWS Pacific Warning Centres. The messages received have spam warnings due to there being no sender's name and all upper case in the body of the message. This is not sufficient to prevent reception of the messages, but is a potential problem which needs to be addressed.

The CARIBE WAVE 11/ LANTEX 11 tsunami exercise is being conducted to assist tsunami preparedness efforts throughout the Caribbean region. Recent events, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean, 2009 Samoa, and 2010 Haiti and Chile earthquakes and tsunamis, attest to the importance of proper planning for tsunami response. The purpose of the exercise is to improve Tsunami Warning System effectiveness along the Caribbean coasts. The exercise provides an opportunity for emergency management organizations throughout the Caribbean to exercise their operational lines of communications, review their tsunami response procedures, and promote tsunami preparedness. Regular exercising of response plans is critical to maintain readiness for an emergency. This is particularly true for tsunamis, which are infrequent but high impact events. Every Caribbean emergency management organization (EMO) is encouraged to participate.