Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Part Two

Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Day Two
Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Greetings from Day 2 of our Virtual USA (vUSA) trip to the Gulf. Our work in the Unified Command (UC) Center in Mobile has been a real eye-opener. More than 24,000 personnel are responding to the oil spill and hundreds of them are physically working at the UC. In addition to assisting our vUSA pilot partners involved in the response, we are also meeting with other homeland security officials, such as the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as representatives from federal and state environmental, wildlife, and marine agencies. Among others, we met with:
• Alabama Department of Homeland Security
• Alabama Department of Environmental Management
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Florida Wildlife Commission
• Mississippi Department of Homeland Security
• Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

As we demonstrated the functionality and versatility of the vUSA information-sharing environment at their request, these officials commented how vUSA can be of great assistance for their activities by providing a common operating environment across all domains involved in the spill – a capability states say they have needed, but could not afford. To plug states and partners into this common environment, we set up their vUSA user accounts so they would have real-time and seamless access to regionally shared information. Full integration into vUSA will take time; but for now, the new regional and collaborative capability is allowing for better situational awareness and decision-making among the Gulf states.

Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Day Three
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Part 1

We had a breakthrough yesterday in real-time information sharing during our visit to the Unified Command (UC) Center in Mobile, Alabama. Virtual USA (vUSA) users at the UC in Houma, Louisiana can now access real-time maps being produced by British Petroleum (BP) GIS experts. Before gaining access to vUSA, BP was limited to distributing its data, as well as information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, to partner agencies in a PDF file. Emergency managers received an updated PDF document – a static snapshot – three times a day. During our visit, BP provided a link to its private map and added it to vUSA. The company plans to make the Unified Command common operating picture publicly available through live feeds and Web services. Using vUSA, emergency response officials can now access the latest information from BP as they need it in real time.

Our vUSA team on the ground was able to lend a hand to the Alabama Forestry Commission yesterday to identify which beaches in Mobile and Baldwin Counties are private and which are public. The oil cleanup is handled differently with regard to privately- and publicly-owned land. Virtual Alabama already had the information the Forestry Commission needed. By inviting the Forestry Commission into vUSA, it was able to access more detailed information provided by the Virtual Alabama team. This is a great example of how a culture of collaboration and information sharing can help make the massive job of cleaning up the oil spill a little easier for emergency responders. We are looking forward to assisting more agencies during our next stops in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Day Three
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 Part 2

Our stop in Mississippi took us to the water’s edge. The Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL) is part of the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Science and Technology, and the lab is conducting a lot of research to determine the impact the oil spill is having on marine, wetland, and coastal environments. The Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL) is perched on Biloxi Bay in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Just last month, a GCRL team spent 12 days collecting Atlantic bluefin tuna larvae samples from the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico to study how the only North American spawning ground used by the fish is being affected by the oil spill. GCRL scientists also have gathered samples of other fish, shrimp, and oysters for further study. Government agencies sponsor many of the studies conducted here.

During our visit, GCRL agreed to work with its clients to share environmental data on Virtual USA. Although it will take time to make the information available, once it is up, it will give emergency managers a clearer picture of environmental conditions in and along the Gulf of Mexico.