Over 250 to 300 Bermuda Regiment soldiers, Police officers and Fire Service personnel will swarm the west end on Saturday to test the Island?s hurricane preparedness.

Minister of Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety Randy Horton said at a press conference at Cabinet the hurricane exercise would occur from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday when most of the Island will be watching World Cup matches from Germany.

?We are therefore asking the public not to be alarmed as they see large numbers of troops and emergency service vehicles in the area of Warwick Camp and Morgan?s Point areas over the weekend,? Mr. Horton said. ?The troops will be involved in an exercise designed to ensure that in the event of a hurricane or some natural, or even man-made disaster, our Island will be prepared to deal with it satisfactorily.?

?Exercise Hurricane Hagar? was designed by Regiment staff officer and exercise director Maj. Andrew Price, Mr. Horton said.

Maj. Price said the Ministry of Works and Engineering and Housing would participate in the Hurricane Hagar training scenario. ?Works and Engineering will be required to put a bridge over a span that has been broken by the hurricane,? Maj. Price said.

Hurricane Hagar is due to ?strike? the Island on Friday night causing considerable pretend damage, he said.

?We are playing the scenario as if there had been a formal embodiment,? Maj. Price said.

Fire Service personnel would have to react to imaginary road traffic accidents and damaged buildings would have to be lashed down with tarpaulins, he said. ?There will be a lot activity,? he said. ?Much more than one would expect had a hurricane actually struck. But in order to get a very concentrated period of activity into one day, and to get as much activity going in one day, we have concentrated all of those sorts of scenarios into one time and one place.?

Neither Minister Horton nor Maj. Price would reveal exactly what would unfold during the Exercise in order to keep the emergency services on their toes.

In addition, the Minister said there would be no follow up press conference to share the Exercise results. ?The idea is those members of the Regiment who participate, help themselves to be better prepared in the circumstances,? Mr. Horton responded. Man-made disasters included both ?terrorism? and a recent cruise grounding which he called a ?potentially disastrous incident? in which ?we were fortunate that the outcome was favourable and that no lives were lost,? he said.

He also said that earlier this year the emergency services along with the Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre (Harbour Radio), King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and the Ministry of Tourism and Transport handled a one-day fake fire on board a cruise ship.

On Wednesday, the Department of Airport Operations held a two-day exercise at the airport and Grotto Bay to examine its disaster planning, he said.

?Knowledge about these exercises should give the people of Bermuda some degree of comfort that our agencies are taking their disaster planning responsibilities seriously and re committed to ensuring that disaster-related initiatives operate effectively,? Minister Horton said.