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NOAA Magazine || NOAA Home Page NOAA's ROLE IN THE NATION's RECOVERY EFFORTS AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM
On Sept.11, many federal, state and local agencies and organizations moved rapidly to aid in response and recovery efforts. NOAA continues to be part of this response team—providing tools, technology, and personnel on site at the World Trade Center and in many support locations around the country. To follow are some examples of NOAA's involvement in the Sept. 11 response and recovery efforts. Agents of the NOAA Fisheries Office for Law Enforcement were requested and engaged within hours of the Sept. 11. Since then, NOAA agents continue to support investigative, security and search and recovery efforts. Some spent days assisting with search and rescue efforts at "Ground Zero" in New York City, while others are assisting the Federal Bureau of Investigation with inquiries regarding terrorist activities. NOAA agents are also operating in a number of other capacities—ranging from border and airport security to port patrols. For example, a number of agents will serve on temporary (but extended) duty as Air Marshals for the Federal Aviation Administration. NOAA's National Weather Service forecast offices in Sterling, Va. and Upton, N.Y. continue to provide special forecasts to the Pentagon and lower Manhattan recovery efforts. The Weather Service developed special Web pages to support emergency managers in both locations. These one-stop Web pages include short- and long-term alphanumeric forecasts; graphical forecasts; applicable watches, warnings, and statements; and radar, satellite, lightning, and observational data. The White House also asked for special weather reports to evaluate potential impacts on the activities conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. NOAA prepares these reports daily for the White House, as well as for other classified activities. NOAA directly supported search and recovery efforts at both the WTC and the Pentagon disaster sites with its mapping and remote sensing capabilities at the request of the Army's Joint Precision Strike Demonstration. NOAA coordinated a highly detailed mapping mission at both disaster sites using high resolution aerial photography and Light Detection and Ranging technology. LIDAR is an active remote sensing system used to profile or scan terrain elevations. NOAA's National Ocean Service, the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, Optech, Inc., and the University of Florida teamed up to fly the LIDAR in NOAA's Cessna Citation. NOAA produced an elevation model with accuracy up to fifteen centimeters using LIDAR data, traditional aerial photography, and accurate Global Positioning System measurements connected to the National Spatial Reference System. The data and images produced were critical for search and recovery efforts in that they established an accurate spatial reference frame from which rescuers could perform effective recovery; provided an accurate bird's-eye view of the scene,which is critical for locating structures such as elevator shafts; and established a LIDAR calibration network. This calibration network was critical to private sector entities, such as Earthdata, who were able to collect and distribute critical data every 12 hours using new technologies. NOAA returned to the WTC site to provide data for change analysis. In this regard, the LIDAR data will be used to monitor structural movement of damaged buildings in the area of the WTC disaster and to calculate rubble volume. Furthermore, the images provide extremely accurate height measurements, which can be used to mitigate possible flooding from the surrounding rivers as the recovery efforts descend into the tower basements. The Pentagon site was also mapped with LIDAR for reconstruction purposes. At the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, a NOAA pilot flew an aircraft equipped with the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer system in order to identify and locate asbestos fallout from the WTC plume. NOAA Research scientists have also been assisting EPA efforts to assess ground-level air pollution problems associated with the collapse of the WTC buildings. In response to U.S. Coast Guard harbor security needs, NOAA rushed paper copies of the New York nautical chart to the Coast Guard (Staten Island) to aid its response in the WTC emergency. Subsequently, NOAA has employed its regional Navigation Managers and Scientific Support Coordinators to help facilitate meetings on port security issues and contingency planning with the Navy, Coast Guard and other government and port sector officials. For example, in Hampton Roads, Va.—home to the nation's largest military and commercial port operations—nearly 275 port employees mobilized to discuss security issues in the week following the attack. The Captain of the Port and Commanding Officer of the Norfolk Navy Base commended NOAA for its charting work, which clearly marked a security/restricted area around the U.S. Navy Base. NOAA, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, continues to revise and distribute its nautical charts to reflecting new security zones. NOAA's New York area Scientific Support Coordinator provided on-site scientific support to the USCG Federal On-Scene Coordinator in preparation for possible oil and hazardous material pollution resulting from the WTC collapse. Although no significant marine pollution event occurred, the SSC evaluated numerous water pollution risks associated with potential hazardous materials releases from the WTC site. NOAA's Scientific Support Team in Seattle, Wash., provided an inventory of contaminants that might have been present in the impacted buildings and prepared to develop spill trajectories in the event that a pollution incident occurred. In addition, NOAA developed an information management support system for the USCG, which included intranet sites for both information sharing within the USCG response community and for rapid dissemination of marine safety information to the public. NOAA responded rapidly to the
horrific events of Sept. 11 and was able to provide a number
of critical support services to the response effort. Currently,
NOAA is working to determine how it can best support Homeland
Security, particularly with respect to port security and the
Marine Transportation System. NOAA will continue to work closely
with the USCG, others in the administration, non-federal partners,
and Congress to protect the USA's vital port operations.
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