Cayman got a head start on the hurricane season this week, carrying out an exercise on Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare for a mock storm.

The National Hazard Management Council met on Tuesday afternoon as part of an exercise to get ready for “Hurricane Dan”, named after Auditor General Dan Duguay whose contract finishes on Friday.

Senior officials and representatives of Hazard Management Cayman Islands and other essential services attended an initial meeting Tuesday in the first phase of the two-day simulation to prepare and react to “Dan”.

Under the 2010 scenario, ‘Hurricane Dan’ made impact with Grand Cayman. The storm scenario continued through the night and into Wednesday which began with the shuttering of government buildings and the testing of generators.

By noon Wednesday, the “storm” had hit the island, causing damage to the eastern and southern parts of the island, wrecking the port and destroying some of the island’s infrastructure, said Omar Afflick, director of the National Emergency Operations Centre.

Calling the storm after the auditor general was a joint decision, Mr. Afflick said, and was done to honour the work Mr. Duguay had done for hazard management in Cayman.

“Dan Duguay has played a very vital role in the development of the present systems we have. He played an integral role in the development of our relief plans and played a role in the development of the clusters and sub-committees responsible for that area. He has done quite a bit of work in trying to streamline the plans that already exist and contributed to new plans and procedures the Cayman Islands will use in the future,” Mr. Afflick said.

Mr. Duguay said he had been asked if he minded the fake hurricane being named after him, but he said he regarded it as a humorous farewell gesture. “I said I didn’t mind at all, that I thought it pretty funny,” he said.

Practice run

If a hurricane hits Cayman this year, it will be the first time Governor Duncan Taylor will experience one here. However, he is off island so did not participate in this week’s exercise. A representative from his office, Steve Moore, took his place.

Mr. Afflick said the governor would be trained in the procedures and in WebEOC – a web–based emergency communications system.

There are a number of other new players who have not gone through the emergency procedures before and the exercise is aimed at preparing them as well as to refresh the knowledge of people already experienced in the exercise.

During the exercise, and in a real storm, the executive group, which includes the governor, members of Cabinet and Leader of the Opposition, will be based at Citrus Grove in George Town, while members of the policy group will be stationed at the airport fire station.

On Wednesday morning, the National Emergency Operation Centre was activated, featuring a tabletop exercise designed to test readiness plans. It also served to refresh existing personnel and train new players in their roles and familiarised them with the structure, functions and procedures of the National Emergency Operations Centre.

“The only field activities is the shuttering exercise in all government buildings and checking water supplies,” said McCleary Frederick, director of Hazard Management Cayman Islands.

Hurricane season officially begins on 1 June, and lasts for six months.

The exercise is done annually to test the Hurricane Plan and to allow players to rehearse their roles. If the exercise highlights some shortfalls of the existing systems, those will lead to amendments in the plan, Mr. Afflick explained.

Last year, due to the relatively quiet 2009 season, the National Emergency Operations Centre was not activated so the national response mechanism was not exercised.

The “Hurricane Dan” scenario provided “realistic and credible description of what is possible prior to and following the impact of a hurricane that may affect the Cayman Islands”, according to a government press release.

It was a national exercise, incorporating the government, any functional district emergency response committees, non-governmental organisations, all emergency response entities and the 17 sub-committees forming the clusters of the NEOC.

Participants were asked to react to all scenarios as though they were real situations.

The scenario presented was not necessarily based on one particular storm, but on historical data and sought to realistically reflect the behaviour of a hurricane. Participants were told it could be based on a composite of more than one storm.

The exercise finished with a debrief at 3.30pm at the NEOC.