Hurricane season: a full-scale exercise mobilizes the entire workforce

On Thursday June 12, over forty people took part in a major exercise to prepare for the risk of hurricanes. Between Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin, the main organizations involved in the safety of the population worked in coordination on a fictitious scenario, notably within the Stis territorial operational center in Saint-Barth.

It's barely ten o'clock in the morning, and the alert level has already been raised to red. The name of the approaching phenomenon is not mentioned, but around Lieutenant Thierry Brin, second-in-command of Saint-Barthélemy's Service territorial d'incendie et de secours (Stis), teams are busy meeting their obligations.
Facing the large screens in the room housing the Territorial Operations Center (COT), in the Stis barracks on Saint-Jean, several groups try to respond quickly to the emergency situations that the scenario devised by RisCrises and Safe Saint-Barth imposes on them. A boat going adrift with its occupants on board, a roof giving way in the Saint-Jean district, people to be rushed to one of the safe shelters and, later, a massive influx of patients at the gates of the Irénée de Bruyn hospital. All with a Category 3 hurricane on the way. Although it was only a simulation, it was in real time and confronted with concrete cases that all the participants had to come up with answers and solutions.

Involvement of manufacturers
Some forty players were involved in the exercise. From the Prefecture to various departments of the Collectivité territoriale, the Stis, volunteers from the territorial civil security reserve, the gendarmerie, the police, the Red Cross, as well as EDF, Paprec Energies, Sidem and Rubis. An "active participation" marked by "everyone's commitment", underlines Lieutenant Brin, who adds: "The fact that everyone got involved is very satisfying. Especially as the exercise lasted over six hours, which is quite demanding, and everyone stayed until the end. "
The scenario devised by scientists from Montpellier's Paul Valéry University, who are working on the Safe Saint-Barth project, and the RisCrises company, focused on the random effects that can occur in the event of a storm.focused on the random effects that nature could have on the island's industrial infrastructures (EDF power plant, Sidem desalination plant, Paprec Energies waste disposal site). The aim was also to test the new IT tools available to COT at the Stis barracks. While the results were conclusive, there are still a number of automatisms to be acquired. "We're going to continue working on mastering the new tools and on our intuitiveness," assures Lieutenant Thierry Brin. As for the coordination of all services during the exercise, this will be detailed in a report to be drawn up by observers from Safe Saint-Barth and RisCrises.