MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. – The 13th Air Force in support of the state of Hawaii Civil Defense launched planes from Civil Air Patrol’s Hawaii Wing this morning for statewide tsunami warnings following an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chili.
“Eighty percent of the shoreline in Hawaii does not have a fixed base siren,” said Hawaii Wing Commander Col. Roger Caires. “CAP aircraft are the only resource for issuing tsunami warnings, via a speaker system attached to the outside lower portion of their plane’s fuselage.”
Nine Cessnas with full crews are flying pre-assigned warning routes around the islands to look for anybody on or near the shoreline. The planes began sounding the tsunami warning at 6 a.m. Hawaii time, five hours before arrival time.
In addition, CAP’s Pacific Region Incident Command Response Team, made up of 20 highly trained members who can dispatch within four hours, is preparing to deploy to Hawaii if needed.
“I am proud of our members,” said Caires. “They again met the standard of being ready to launch within one hour.”
Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with 59,000 members nationwide. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 72 lives in fiscal year 2009. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter-drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 24,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for 68 years. For more information on CAP, please visit [url=http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com]http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com[/url].
Civil Air Patrol contacts:
Julie DeBardelaben, Deputy Director, Public Affairs: W: (877) 227-9142 Ext. 250 ♦ C: (334) 462-5305
Steve Cox, Public Affairs Manager: W: (877) 227-9142 Ext. 251 ♦ C: (334) 296-5881
gocivilairpatrol.com 
