says he doesn’t mind; he loves con- necting the dots for people, intro- ducing them to the ins and outs of nautical charts and the importance of maritime transportation. It’s not just the ports and shipping
companies that have an interest in safe navigation; everybody, even some- one in Kansas who might never see the ocean, benefits from the services Coast Survey provides. “The work that we do is helping to make sure they get the goods that they use every day,” Krepp says, estimating 70 percent to 80 percent of the products at Wal- Mart at some point traveled on a ship. Whether the agency’s hydrograph-
ic survey teams are traveling on the open road or on the high seas, they’re ideally suited to respond when a hur- ricane threatens. While other survey vessels flee the projected path of the storm, an NRT might load its small, well-equipped boat onto a trailer and drive directly toward the danger. In most cases, a team shows up within 24 to 36 hours, ready to begin scanning the murky waters of storm-ravaged ports and shipping channels in search of submerged hazards.
“A lot of these commercial ships
are coming into ports with only a foot or two of water underneath them,” Krepp says. “They require a very precise measurement to help them navigate.” After a storm, a slight change in the depth of a channel or a single piece of debris could make a bad situation much worse. In addition to single-beam echo-
sounders, multi-beam sonar, depth gauges, an automated underwater vehicle, and good old-fashioned lead lines, Coast Survey vessels bring the unique capabilities of side-scan sonar to the recovery ef- fort. “Multi-beam gives you depth information; side-scan gives you a picture,” Krepp explains. Integrat- ing the two systems offers a surpris- ingly accurate idea of exactly what lies beneath the waves.
The Office of Coast Survey com-
bines side-scan sonar with multi-beam sonar (below) to create an accurate image of what is beneath the waves. A side-scan sonar image shows the wreckage of a World War II patrol boat (right) off of Cape Hatteras, N.C.
COAST SURVEY FACT
hydrographic surveys have been conducted since 1807.
10,600
Eminent domain
Coast Survey stays busy maintain- ing the nation’s nautical maps and charts. The mission doesn’t gen- erate much fanfare, but detailed, accurate, and up-to-date data are critical to maritime commerce. In 1807, when Thomas Jefferson cre- ated the Survey of the Coast, cred- ited as the nation’s first scientific agency, the U.S. was losing more ships to bad charts than to war. Currently nestled within NOAA’s National Ocean Service, Coast Survey
IMAGES: ABOVE, COURTESY NOAA COAST SURVEY; RIGHT, NOAA/AP
MAY 2 0 1 0 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R 5 3
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92