A Coast Survey navigational
response team (right) can survey even the narrowest of waterways, as in this picture following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
In the past 10 years, while Coast
Survey has doggedly surveyed the nation’s coastal waters, its emergen- cy-response capabilities have grown as a result of the nation’s need. “It’s a pretty natural fit for us,” Krepp says, even though disaster response doesn’t technically play a part in the agency’s mission.
Science to the rescue
Coast Survey also has a mobile inte- grated survey team (MIST) with five cases full of portable survey equip- ment that can be shipped anywhere in the country, allowing any vessel to be transformed into a survey ship. In January 2009, the system was
dispatched to New York City follow- ing the emergency landing of U.S. Air- ways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River. The pilot, Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sul- lenberger, pulled off the landing, but it was up to MIST, which was deployed on a vessel provided by New York City authorities, to locate the plane’s miss- ing engine on the riverbed. In 1999, Coast Survey personnel used side-scan sonar to locate the
square nautical miles of sive Economic Zone.
wreckage of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s plane in the cold Atlantic waters off the coast of Massachusetts. Barnum headed up NOAA’s response when 217 passengers and crew were lost in the crash of Egypt Air Flight 990 later the same year. NRTs have responded to bridge collapses, discovered historic shipwrecks, located dangerous un- exploded ordnance underwater, and aided in hurricane recovery efforts. Referring to aspects of NOAA’s role during hurricane season, which begins
June 1 and ends Nov. 30 of each year, Cmdr. Alan Bunn, NOAA-Ret., West Gulf Coast Navigation manager, who serves as an ambassador to the mari- time community on behalf of Coast Survey, says, “We already respond to hurricanes in terms of the Weather Service’s predictions, the Hurricane Center’s predictions, and interactions with emergency [operations] centers. We have a fleet of aircraft that fly into, above, and around hurricanes. Why not be involved in the response if our survey tools and vessels can help out?” In the wake of a storm, Bunn coor-
dinates recovery efforts with the local port community, working in partner- ship with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, among others. In 2004, when 15 named storms, including six major hurricanes (category 3 or higher), pummeled the U.S., Bunn sped off in his own RV to lend a hand. In 2005, he and his col- leagues responded to the busiest hur- ricane season on record; the Atlantic hurricane season was packed with 28 named storms, including Hurricane Katrina and six other major storms. “In the case of Katrina, we had
seven different coastal ports that were heavily affected,” Bunn recalls. Within days, four Coast Survey NRTs and a NOAA ship had arrived from as
COAST SURVEY FACT
square nautical miles are sur- veyed by the agency every year.
3,000
far away as the Pacific and the Great Lakes to work with the Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers. “Those seven ports were open in seven days.” When hurricanes and other unwel-
come guests came to call, Bunn head- ed off to aid in the recovery. When Hurricane Ike came ashore in 2008, he didn’t have to go far. “Ike came to me,” he says. The storm churned through Galveston Bay and came ashore over the Bolivar Peninsula, where Bunn used to have a vacation home, a trac- tor, and a 24-foot boat. Ike took it all. The storm also damaged his office, flooded his home, and left his pickup truck submerged in 6 feet of water. After spending almost 34 years
with NOAA, 25 of them in the officer corps, Bunn is pragmatic about the experience. He’s also hopeful someday his friends and colleagues just might find his missing boat. MO
— Christina Wood is a Florida-based
freelance writer. Her last article for Military Officer was “Harvesting Change,” May 2009.
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