Earthquake scenario in a national drill, the case of “Turning Point 6”, 2012, Israel

National exercises are an excellent opportunity to practice earthquake preparedness. Such exercises can greatly benefit from productive communication between the civil protection agencies (CPs) and the earth sciences community (SC). The challenge of the scientists in this interaction is to properly formulate their message and convey their perspective in a manner understandable to the responsible emergency agencies. On October 2012, Israel held its first national earthquake emergency exercise (TP6) that examined the response of the country’s systems at large to an Mw ~ 7 earthquake. The exercise greatly benefited from brain storming meetings between the CPs and researchers from the Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) that were held prior to the drill. These helped in choosing the earthquake scenario and establish the concept of the exercise. Geological hazards and damage maps, including numerous discrete events, were prepared in advance with the HAZUS Multi-Hazard Loss Estimation software and were conveyed to the drilled authorities during the exercise. The exercise also benefitted from close collaboration between researchers of FEMA and the GSI. During the drill, the GSI and its relevant scientists practiced the preparation and transfer of the relevant material to the decision makers in “real time.” The drill provided the following lessons: (1) In real time, the damage maps should be delivered by earthquake researchers, thereby helping the CP agencies to grasp the information. (2) Damage maps should be prepared in advance and accessibly stored by the CP agencies for a range of probable scenarios. (3) Damage maps based on dot density that represent number of buildings damaged, number of casualties and weight of debris were found to be the most comprehensible when presenting the scope of the damage. The lessons learned from the collaboration between the CP and SC in TP6 provide an excellent example for optimal planning of national earthquake exercises, thereby helping in minimizing the anticipated impact of destructive earthquakes.