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OMAO Pre and Post Katrina Assessments and
Assistance
NOAA's Aircraft, Ships and Personnel Continue
to Provide Post-Hurricane Assistance
An update on OMAO aircraft and ship activities
- September 20-26
-
NOAA Ship NANCY FOSTER has been tasked
to conduct an environmental survey from
the Florida coast to southwest Louisiana
to determine the potential for contamination
from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Visit
the NOAA Fisheries Environmental
Impacts page for results of the surveys.
-
NOAA Ship THOMAS JEFFERSON conducted post-Rita
surveys of the approaches to Galveston/Houston
and is currently working in the Port Arthur
area.
-
The NOAA Citation jet flew post-storm
shoreline damage assessment flights. See
the NOAA
News story for more information and
access to the photos.
-
Both of NOAA's P-3 aircraft flew missions
into Hurricane Rita. NOAA P-3 N42RF completed
an Ocean Wind experiment the night of Friday,
September 23, completing all planned flights
on Hurricane Rita. NOAA P-3 N43RF completed
a reconnaissance/Stepped Frequency Microwave
Radiometer surface wind mission into Hurricane
Rita Friday night, completing all planned
flights on Hurricane Rita.
More information on pre- and post-hurricane
activities by OMAO can be viewed
here.
Visit NOAA's
web site to read more about NOAA's involvement
with recovery and assessment efforts.
NOAA’s
Bell
212
helicopter continued supply missions and
assessments of tide-gauge damage and hazardous
materials spills in support of
NOAA Oceans
and
Coasts.
The Shrike aircraft began marine
mammal surveys September 17 to observe strandings
and mortalities along the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi and
the shoreline of Lake
Pontchartrain in Louisiana in
support of NOAA Fisheries Service.
NOAA ship THOMAS
JEFFERSON completed survey operations in
the approaches to the Pascagoula, Mississippi,
ship channel on September 18, and began
survey operations in the approaches to the Gulfport ship
channel.
After completing its survey
tasking, NANCY FOSTER conducted an investigation
of offshore environmental impacts from Southwest
Pass, Louisiana,
to Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The study was led by scientists from NOAA Oceans and
Coasts, NOAA Fisheries Service, and NOAA
Research to assess water contamination levels
and associated fish stocks.
NANCY
FOSTER also recovered a non-operational weather
buoy for the National Data Buoy Center and
towed it to St.
Petersburg, Florida, on
September 19.
The two NOAA ships homeported
in Pascagoula,
GORDON GUNTER and OREGON II, continue to
provide logistics and communications support
to NOAA employees and local agencies.
Week of September 6 - 12
Aircraft:
-
The
Bell 212 helicopter is conducting tide
gauge and HAZMAT assessments along the
Mississippi and Louisiana coasts with NOS
personnel, and is conducting HAZMAT investigations
with NOS HAZMAT personnel.
The
Citation has completed its aerial photography
and is standing by for tasking that may
result from Hurricane Ophelia. The aircraft
transported NOAA's National Weather Service
personnel to Stennis for facilities inspection
last week.
Ships:![preparing to launch side scan sonar 'fish'](graphics/katrina_sssfishsm.jpg)
-
NANCY
FOSTER is underway on a cruise to sample
water, sediments, and fish/shrimp for evidence
of toxic contamination and pathogens in
the offshore waters affected by Katrina.
Over the weekend of September 10, the ship
departed Pascagoula for Gulfport Mississippi,
to assess the locations of tide gauges.![Instrument used to take sediment samples](graphics/katrina_nfsamplesm.jpg)
OMAO Employees Repair Generators
Hurricane Katrina knocked out power at the
National Data Buoy Center(NDBC) at the Stennis
Space Center in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi,
and two OMAO engineers in Pascagoula came to
the rescue. Edgar Figueiredo and ENS Tony Perry
III, NOAA, from GORDON GUNTER were able to
perform emergency repairs to the generators.
They were able to keep power coming into the
facility and to NDBC's mission.
Vaccines Acquired for NOAA Employees in
Mississippi
OMAO also responded to a request via the Incident
Coordination Center (ICC), Homeland Security
Office, to provide 200 doses of hepatitis and
tetanus vaccines for NOAA employees without
updated shots at the Stennis Space Center who
might be exposed to raw sewage in the water.
LCDR William Foust, U.S. Public Health Service,
who works at the Marine Operations Center -
Pacific, located a source for tetanus vaccines
-- which are in extremely short supply nationally
-- as well as hepatitis vaccines, and convinced
the Department of Health and Human Services
to sell them to OMAO. Because FedEx will not
deliver refrigerated packages to the end address,
LCDR Michele Pelkey, USPHS, who is assigned
to Marine Operations Center - Atlantic, drove
to the FedEx office in Mobile, Alabama, to
pick up the vaccines and then drove to Stennis
to deliver them. LCDR Keith Roberts, NOAA,
at ICC helped coordinate their efforts.
Immediately Following Katrina's Landfall
-
Aircraft
Are Supporting Logistics
The Bell helicopter has been flying numerous
supply runs to GORDON
GUNTER and OREGON
II, the Pascagoula NOAA Lab, the NOAA Office
at Halter Marine and NOAA's Stennis facilities.
So far over 6,000 pounds of supplies (water,
food, generators, electronics, SAT phones,
hygiene items, insecticide, diapers, paper
plates, plastic ware, tarps, flashlights, medical
kits, fans, bedding) have been delivered to
these facilities. Additional flights have been
flown up the Pascagoula River to locate hazards
to navigation. After leaving the Stennis area,
the crew flew in search of a wayward National
Data Buoy Center buoy that is somewhere in
the streets of Gulfport Mississippi. The Shrike
has flown to the helicopter's temporary base
in Panama City, Florida, to provide the crew
with more fuel containers.
Ships Dispatched to Survey Ports for Obstructions ![NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson](graphics/katrina_tj1713.jpg)
NANCY
FOSTER and THOMAS
JEFFERSON were released from their scheduled
sea days by the Office
of Coast Survey and have been diverted
to help survey port areas in Mobile, Alabama,
and Pascagoula, Mississippi, respectively.
NANCY FOSTER, a coastal oceanography vessel,
was outfitted with multibeam and side scan
sonar and is now on site, carrying an ad
hoc Navigation Response Team from the Office
of Coast Survey to conduct the surveys. THOMAS
JEFFERSON, a hydrographic survey vessel,
is en route from Norfolk, Virginia, and should
be on site later this week.
NOAA
Aircraft Fly Damage Assessment Surveys; Collect
Imagery
At the request of NOAA’s National Hurricane
Center (NHC), a NOAA P-3 flew two damage assessment
flights over the hurricane-ravaged area last
Wednesday and Thursday. Aboard both days was
Max Mayfield, Director of NHC, who needed to
compare actual damage against storm predictions.
With him the first day were senior meteorologists
from NHC. On the second flight were VADM Lautenbacher,
RADM De Bow, and CAPT Steve Kozak, AOC Director,
as well as staff from the Senate Appropriations
Committee.
The Citation, tasked by NOAA's Remote Sensing
Division, flew over Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Alabama from the day after Katrina's landfall
through Labor Day, and collected more than
5000 digital photographs of the devastation.
The aircraft can support a wide variety of
remote sensing configurations, including large
format aerial photography, as well as data
collection for digital cameras, hyperspectral,
multispectral and LIDAR systems. The images
have been posted at http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/. Though
a partnership between NOAA and Google.com,
Google has made our imagery available using
the Google Earth product. See http://earth.google.com/katrina.html for
details.
NOAA Ships Survive Storm; Port Office Does
Not
GORDON
GUNTER and OREGON II weathered Hurricane Katrina,
but not without damage to OREGON II’s
hull. There is
a foot-long gash in the hull above the waterline
and some scarring on the hull from banging
against the pier. The
ship has some systems operating on generators
and a few people still on board, but the ship
will need repairs before it can become operational. Finding
a nearby shipyard that is up and running may
be problematic. The extent of damage and estimated
time for repairs is unknown at this time. GORDON
GUNTER was unscathed, and its systems are running. The
Pascagoula Port Office, which is part of the
Pascagoula Fisheries Lab building, has significant
damage; OMAO will work with the NOAA Facilities
Office and NOAA Fisheries as the facilities
are repaired or rebuilt. The
pier suffered structural damage, but the ships
are still able to berth there.
HENRY
B. BIGELOW, which has not yet been delivered
to NOAA, has no apparent damage, but the VT
Halter Marine, Inc., shipyard has suffered
extensive damage and will probably not be up
and running for at least another month. In
fact, BIGELOW generators were offered for use
to help provide power to the shipyard. The
NOAA offices on site were destroyed, and all
paper records were lost. We do not know yet
how this will affect the NOAA Fisheries Survey
Vessel and SWATH programs.
GORDON GUNTER Becomes Haven and Communications
Hub
GORDON GUNTER weathered the storm without
damage and has stepped up to help others. It
is providing shelter and meals for its crew
as well as crew from OREGON II, some displaced
NOAA personnel and their families who have
lost their homes, a U.S. Coast Guard seaman,
and members of NOAA's Navigational Response
Team who are surveying the area. Mattresses
were taken from OREGON II to accommodate as
many people as possible. Personnel from the
Pascagoula Naval Station and U.S. Coast Guard
Mobile Sector have been using GUNTER's communications
capabilities, including Inmarsat and Iridium
phones and email. The ship's engineers and
electronics technician have been working around
the clock to keep the ship systems and communications
operating. GUNTER also has been providing hot
meals to NOAA personnel working around the
NOAA Fisheries Lab and to visiting Navy and
USCG staff. Fisheries scientists have pitched
in with the cooking. Family members have been
helping out with cleanup operations on the
ship and in the dock area.
P-3 and G-IV Helped NOAA Weather Service
Predict Landfall
Between 25-29 August during Hurricane Katrina,
the NOAA P3 (N43) and Gulfstream IV provided
pre-landfall reconnaissance for the National
Hurricane Center. The P-3 flew 4 flights and
33 flight hours and deployed 121 dropsondes.
The G-IV flew 6 flights and 49.7 flight hours,
and deployed 153 dropsondes. Without the support
of the Aircraft Operations Center flight crews
and scientists, the loss of life from Hurricane
Katrina would no doubt have been far greater.
Hats off, too, to the AOC maintenance and ground
crews that keep these aircraft safely in flight,
and the operations personnel who provide logistical
support.
Read the News
Story on NOAA's efforts in tracking and
measuring the storm before it made landfall
and how NOAA is assisting in damage assessments
and recovery efforts after the storm.
NOAA Aircraft Flight Statistics on Hurricane
Katrina
The
Gulfstream
SP-IV (G-IV) wrapped up its work in the
environment of Hurricane Katrina Sunday evening,
August 28, having flown for 6 missions in five
days (one night flight), for a
total of 49.7 hours, while launching 153 dropwindsondes and
covering 21,015 nautical miles of flight track.
The Lockheed
WP-3D Orion (P-3) accomplished 16
hurricane penetrations over 4 flights into
Katrina, 7 at landfall (2 along South Florida,
5 in Louisiana). Continuous stepped frequency
microwave radiometer surface winds were broadcast
from the P-3 during its
five missions, allowing NOAA to better predict
storm surge and determine the
width of hurricane force winds.
The
stepped frequency microwave radiometer on NOAA
P-3 N43RF was credited with raising the storm
from Tropical Storm status to Hurricane status
just prior to landfall in South Florida on
Thursday August 25. The P-3 flight on
Sunday August 28 was credited with measuring
the 4th lowest barometric
pressure for a hurricane in the history of
the Atlantic basin at 902
milibars.
Aircraft activity statistics from Aircraft
Operations Center on Hurricane Katrina:
G-IV:
-
6 flights flown
-
49.7 flight hours
-
153 dropsondes expended
P-3:
-
4 flights flown
-
33.0 flight hours
-
121 dropsondes
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