Kathrina Urann, NSWC Dahlgren Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP) Project Manager, uses TRITON - an NSWCDD developed geospatial system - to track hurricanes from Dahlgren.
Navy analysts and engineers from the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division helped set a record by providing infrastructure analysis support to assist U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) operations in response to two hurricanes and a tropical storm in September.
‘‘We provided predictive and infrastructure analysis to NORTHCOM for Ike, Hannah and Gustav,” said Kathrina Urann, NSWCDD’s Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP) Project Manager. ‘‘Mission Assurance Division personnel identified DoD bases, assets and supporting infrastructure potentially affected by the hurricanes,” she said.
The DCIP team – 40 NSWCDD employees, including a fulltime liaison and four analysts who deployed to NORTHCOM headquarters throughout the month – helped ensure DoD assets were available to support hurricane relief efforts.
‘‘DoD was better able to prepare for and respond to a series of natural hazards threatening the United States Homeland as a result of the timely and accurate data and analysis provided by our Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP) Crisis Support Team,” said John Lysher, NSWCDD’s Asymmetric Defense Systems Department Head.
In addition to DoD resources, the team analyzed commercial infrastructure that included electric power, telecommunications, water supplies, transportation, oil and natural gas.
‘‘This information was used by NORTHCOM Action Officers to brief senior DoD leadership,” said Urann. ‘‘We provided infrastructure and impact analysis for base support installations tasked with pre-positioning supplies for hurricane relief and information on identified infrastructure outage areas.”
‘‘The support of this team was essential to ensuring DoD leadership had the best information from which to base their crisis decisions,” Lysher added.
Military responders also relied on geospatial systems – TRITON and the Homeland Defense–Mission Assurance Portal (HD-MAP) – developed by NSWCDD to monitor hurricane relief efforts and identify DoD assets affected by the hurricanes.
The responders used the geospatial systems in their efforts to identify commercial infrastructure assets potentially affected by the hurricanes.
TRITON is a Web portal developed and hosted by NSWCDD’s Mission Assurance Division that integrates and visualizes data from many sources on a geographic map. In order to facilitate interagency collaboration, USNORTHCOM uses TRITON as its external unclassified common operational picture.
HD-MAP is the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America's Security Affairs (OASD-HD&ASA) classified geospatial portal providing access to Defense Critical Infrastructure Program data and analysis.
DoD commands and agencies employing TRITON and HD-MAP include USNORTHCOM; OASD-HD&ASA; Joint Task Force–Global Network Operations, Defense Information Systems Agency, the Joint Staff National Military Command Center, and the National Guard Bureau.
The Mission Assurance Division collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security’s National Infrastructure Coordination Center in September to share products and information in support of hurricane disaster response and relief efforts.
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