Reports

• The Hurricane Katrina response in 2005 identified the essential need to establish standard procedures in a number of areas.  An outcome is The National Search and Rescue Plan, signed by Departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Interior, Transportation, and Commerce, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Federal Communications Commission, that supports Federal efforts in response to catastrophic incidents as described in the National Response Framework (2008) and Emergency Support Function-9, Search and Rescue. 
  
  To support national, interagency Search and Rescue (SAR) response efforts during times of severe national disasters, the National Search and Rescue Committee developed this Catastrophic Incident Search and Rescue (CIS) Addendum to the National Search and Rescue Manual as guidance for Federal SAR responders. Pages 64 – 71 cover Geo-referencing procedures and in summary instructs that land SAR Responders must use U.S. National Grid; however, a good familiarity with latitude and longitude is necessary to ensure effective interface between Land and Aeronautical SAR Responders.  Aeronautical SAR Responders will use latitude and longitude for CIS response.  However, aeronautical SAR responders that work directly with Land SAR responders should understand the U.S. National Grid system for effective Land SAR/Aeronautical SAR interface.
  
• Geospatial Information Technology Association (GITA) letter of July 3, 2007
• CJCSI 3900.01C Position Reference Procedures of 30 June 2007, this document provides guidance to the Armed Forces on how to reference positions.  This latest edition notes in paragraph 4.a.(2) the role of the FGDC's USNG standard for the Armed Forces in support of homeland security and homeland defense.
• A National States Geographic Information Council White Paper on the National Grid, August 3, 2006
• Defense Science Board Task Force on The Future of the Global Positioning System, (1Mb) October 2005.  See Appendix E Geospatial Interoperability

Articles

• Get on the National Grid, by Pat West, Senior Editor, Fire Chief Magazine, July 20, 2004.
  
• The United States National Grid, Surveyor Magazine, September 2004, p. 12
  Focuses on how to read a USNG coordinate. File size: 1.8Mb
• Geoaddress, Where Is It?, Surveyor Magazine, November 2004, p. 30
  Discusses the concept of USNG based geoaddresses. File size: 672Kb
• Introducing the United States National Grid, ArcUser Magazine, July-September, 2005.
  
• New Kind of Map Could Help Emergency Response, by Dan Charles, National Public Radio, February 25, 2006.
  
• Another post-Katrina problem: What happened to the street?: Hurricane response highlighted the need to standardize digital maps, by Aliya Sternstein, Federal Computer Week, February 27, 2006.
• Which Way to the National Grid, by Jessica Sperlongano, National journal, April 29, 2006.
• The US National Grid; by Talbot Brooks, Networks, Nov/Dec 2006, Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 11 - 13.  Describes the Mississippi experience in Hurricane Katrina with mapping and need for a standard grid in responding to that disaster.