A MULTI-AGENCY major incident training exercise was held “successfully” at the Harbour earlier this week.
The Elizabeth Terminal was closed for several hours on Tuesday as the emergency services, Customs and government departments tested their response in establishing a “survivor reception centre” following a fictional incident.
The exercise scenario featured actors, including a contingent from Highlands College’s Uniformed Services course.
Exercise director and deputy emergency planning officer Richard Blake said: “The Government of Jersey Emergency Planning Team and the Jersey Resilience Forum take training, exercising and learning very seriously.
“The approach is risk based, where we analyse risks that are serious enough to meet the definition of a major incident or emergency, and then focus our planning, and training and exercising on those that are considered to be the most serious.”
He continued: “We brought together the emergency services, Jersey Customs and Immigration Service, Government departments and others to focus on our capabilities in response to an incident at the Harbour.
“The benefit of such an exercise allows us to test our plans but also to make sure that our generic major-incident response arrangements can adapt to any crisis response.”
He thanked the emergency services and those involved in the Jersey Resilience Forum “for their ongoing support and dedication”.
Mr Blake added: “Their degree of commitment, dedication and professionalism to emergency preparedness should be extremely reassuring for the public.
“We would also like to thank those who we drafted in to perform as actors. Without their assistance we would not have been able to successfully operate this exercise.”
