WAILUA — Preparing for potential hurricanes may have pinpointed some weak spots as far as disaster preparedness. And, like in any profession, practice makes perfect, which is why emergency responders were training Wednesday. County rescue teams got help from the Hawaii
WAILUA — Preparing for potential hurricanes may have pinpointed some weak spots as far as disaster preparedness.
And, like in any profession, practice makes perfect, which is why emergency responders were training Wednesday.
County rescue teams got help from the Hawaii National Guard’s 93rd Civil Support Team seeing if Sleeping Giant could be used as potential repeater spot to enable broader communication reach during times of disaster.
“During the recent threat of Tropical Storm Iselle, we looked at the potential communication breakdown for the Wailua and Kawaihau districts, the most populated part of the island,” Kauai Assistant Police Chief Ale Quibilan said. “We’re setting up a repeater at the Nounou mountain trail shelter and will have officers and the Kauai Fire Department going out to test the signal strength in the various areas.”
The exercise closed the Nounou mountain trail shelter while Kauai police and fire departments, with the use of Air 1, airlifted equipment and personnel from the Wailua Homesteads Park to the Nounou Forest Reserve.
“There’s no landing area up there, so everything will have to be airlifted,” Quibilan said.
The week of preparedness continues from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at Vidinha Stadium with a full-scale weapons of mass destruction exercise.
Officials are asking for the public’s cooperation by staying clear of any obvious or marked areas as well as exercise-related vehicles, equipment and personnel.
Participating agencies include the Kauai Civil Defense Agency, the KPD, the KFD, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency formerly the State Civil Defense, the state Department of Health, and the Hawaii Fusion Center, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the American Red Cross, and the G.N. Wilcox Memorial Hospital.
The goal of the exercises is to ensure that Kauai’s first responders will be better prepared for Weapons of Mass Destruction events as well as a broad spectrum of natural and man-made disasters.
