The Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), a University of Hawaiʻi applied science and research center based in Maui, provided technical assistance and expertise during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2024—the world’s largest international maritime exercise. The U.S. government and 29 other nations, international organizations and interagency partners participated, and the theme was “Partners: Integrated and Prepared.”
Held at Pearl Harbor, July 1–15, RIMPAC 2024 included a large-scale humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) exercise involving eight countries, five ships, five landing craft, five aircraft, multiple land forces, and more than 2,500 total participants. The PDC supported both the academic and execution phases of the HADR exercise.
U.S. Agency for International Development’s Shawn Sippin, humanitarian assistance advisor to the military, said the PDC’s DisasterAWARE system played a central role in the newly released task manager application for foreign militaries to use for the 2024 RIMPAC exercise.
“It has been great to see how PDC‘s contributions to supporting military involvement in HADR activities have continued to expand and integrate into international systems in use by many foreign militaries looking to exercise their own disaster response readiness,” Sippin said.
The first week of the exercise included an academics portion to enhance participant understanding of international guidelines and norms of foreign military support to disaster relief operations.
Robert Kalei Miller, PDC senior disaster services analyst and liaison to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, highlighted DisasterAWARE as an information sharing platform, and the center’s real-time advanced analytics about potential disaster impacts and humanitarian needs. The academics course laid the foundation for the scenario and execution phase the following week.
Hurricane scenario
The scenario for the exercise was a category two hurricane striking fictitious islands in the Pacific, modeled after the Hawaiian Islands, requiring foreign military aid. PDC provided estimated impacts and realistic situational awareness products of damage assessments, needs assessments and critical lifeline infrastructure status.
At the RIMPAC HADR Camp, the DisasterAWARE Exercise platform was used to provide real-time scenario information as the common operating picture. The PDC also played a role in the Disaster Coordination Center, developing daily disaster coordination center briefs and updating data to feed into the DisasterAWARE Exercise platform.
PDC received high praise in the after-action follow up for information-sharing and its role in the exercise, and plans to integrate lessons learned into its long-term training and development program.
—By Chani Goering and Alison Somilleda
