Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Conclusion
Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Day Four
Thursday, June 10, 2010The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Virtual USA (vUSA) initiative is all about ensuring decision makers have access to real-time, detailed information during an emergency, and we are seeing it happen firsthand during our visit to the Louisiana State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge. Local emergency responders often have the best knowledge of where a broken boom needs to be repaired, where oil needs to be cleaned up, and where affected wildlife have been spotted, but it can be challenging to collect and aggregate information from thousands of responders to provide leadership with an accurate, up-to-date understanding of events on the ground. Yet, the Virtual Louisiana team has managed to do exactly that.
Within vUSA, the Virtual Louisiana team created a link that compiles incident reports from state agencies. This link is updated three times daily and whenever a new report is made. The link provides vUSA users with real-time information on oil sightings, broken boom locations, and the status of cleanup efforts. With this link, the Unified Command Centers in Mobile, Alabama and Houma, Louisiana as well as the other states participating in vUSA gained access to all the incident reports from Louisiana. DHS created vUSA to provide precisely this type of detailed data to emergency operations centers and leaders so they can effectively respond to a disaster. It is so gratifying to see these capabilities in action.
Virtual USA Gulf Coast Tour – Day Five
Friday, June 11, 2010Day 5: We had a chance to see some operations for ourselves during a helicopter tour of the Louisiana coast on the last day of our visit. The Virtual Louisiana team arranged for us to take a 50-mile ride from St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans to the Chandeleur Islands in eastern Louisiana, one of the first places where oil washed ashore. Virtual Louisiana staffers took pictures with a GPS-enabled camera during the ride and a link to the pictures will be provided on the Virtual USA (vUSA) information-sharing environment as soon as possible.
This trip reflected just how critical information sharing is during a disaster – and that the emergency preparedness and response community – both public and private – is eager to partner and collaborate. The British Petroleum representatives, who met with the DHS Science and Technology support team at the Unified Command Center (UC) in Houma, Louisiana, were thrilled to join the vUSA community. Access to Virtual Louisiana’s frequently updated incident reports about broken boom and affected wildlife will help BP to more effectively respond to the oil spill. BP is interested in adding these state reports to its own maps, which are distributed to the UC three times a day. They have also agreed to share their data catalogues and internal maps with members of the trusted vUSA community. This public-private partnership through vUSA is critical to the oil spill response efforts.
