Emergency sirens were heard across Road Town at about 9:15 a.m. yesterday, but they were nothing to worry about.
When the sirens sounded — part of the territory’s involvement in a regional tsunami drill — participating residents headed for higher ground.
Within 15 minutes of the alarm, employees of the Deputy Governor’s Office advanced uphill toward the Bougainvillea Clinic, David Archer, the DGO’s permanent secretary, said.
DGO employees responded to the siren in timely manner, Mr. Archer added, even though most of them were unaware of the drill ahead of time.
Yesterday’s exercise targeted selected organisations in the territory in order to test the mobile communication systems at the Department of Disaster Management’s Emergency Operations Centre, said DDM Director Sharleen DaBreo.
The exercise was designed in part to determine how fast the DDM office could be evacuated and how quickly mobile communication can be established with local and regional response agencies if disaster strikes, Ms. DaBreo said.
The daylong exercise included several hundred agencies and groups around the region, the United States, Canada and Latin America, she added.
{fcomment}