>> because bp was going to say we think that will work bring it to the fight. it was an awful lot of effort on the part of not only the agencies represented here but those private industries were engaged in those of the federal, state and local partners. it was a tremendous unbelievable effort to keep that impact from being as great as it was. >> i was just curious, from a communications technology perspective, what were the problems, challenges your face with with open mobile to medications and did you use satellite to mutation for some of the conditions as you were further offshore? >> you are, i'll just talk briefly but it want to open that up to the whole panel.

certainly we needed communications offshore. we did use satellite communications. there's satcom systems on the drilling platforms. for aviation we actually had p-3s flying overhead as means of managing the air traffic over there. they used normal aviation frequencies aircraft to aircraft. we use high-frequency, hf radios or offshore. we use vhf frequencies for nearshore. we put the hf transponders on those vessels of opportunities so that we could track them electronically. and ultimately our biggest concerns, i mentioned, you know,

i was really have to be focused on the safety issue. and we have at one point i remember the critical number was nine. we had nine new mrs. with an aircraft. mostly in the coastal area. i think he mentioned yet a lot of different agencies that were unnecessarily duplicating effort. that actually caused safety issues. so i went to the air force. tyndall air force base there has the capacity to set up an emergency air traffic control center that they had used for the haiti earthquake. actually they can manage air traffic anywhere. they did set up there, and we had communications and air traffic management out of tyndall air force base. but the need for medications i

think is still an issue. we may have come a long way with the state, county and local radio systems that are greatly improved since 9/11. i think the offshore, when you mix navy, coast guard, commercial, aircraft, and all those different activities in an area where you cannot put repeater systems on the ground because there is no ground, that's something that we need to do with your probably the answer is satcom. any other common? >> certainly you talk to the offshore challenges and how resolve of those. but i will add at least on the command post side of the nearshore side, one of the things that many in the people remember, anytime were to disaster in the past we had to

pass rate is out for every, or beepers were some way to get hold of him to get attention to call back. i can't think of anybody who didn't report into the command post without a cell phone. indefatigability to committee by with cell phones and e-mail in addition to all documentation systems that bp set up and all the stuff we did offshore. so that really is something we have come accustomed to as a country, but any big disaster like this allows you quickly by with computer to find out where people are and get a hold of him no matter where they are. and when you're dealing with, you know, 1200 people in command post in turn hold a meeting and someone is not right there you can call them and they will, your. >> thank you very much. i have to say really great collaboration amongst all the various agencies. you should really be commended, excellent.

>> communication, we are still using string and again. >> i know that. >> i had a general question. the most important thing about this presentation is what you take away from it and where we move ahead. the theme of this conference is technologies for critical incidents. i applaud the efforts of the coast guard and the r&d center to try to collate innovative technology or snake oil salesman equipment that might be available near-term, but there are at least three departments represented. the question for the panel in general is, what's the government doing here to collate the needs for the future, and rolled out into technology

development and oversight by different r&d organizations across the board? that under an environment where, i'd say in the teacher's perspective we're not investing, maybe a million dollars a year in r&d for this particular subject. how do you get critical mass across the board and identify things that are really the sweet spot? and in the r&d world we need to take that lead from what the operators and the people on the front line identify as their critical needs. so, where do we go from here? >> couple things come to mind. first of all there's been several reports of presidential report, there's been a national incident command report. there's been an independent report, the coast guard charter. finally, our federal on-scene

coordinator report is just about to get published. so i think as far as what are the things that bubbled out that we need to focus the country on, i think if you go through those various after action report per se, you'll find some of those gaps between where we are coming out of this spill and where we need to be. i think the next question is okay, and what do you do about it? well, there's an interagency organization that was established back in the opa 90 legislation, that that's those things -- that vets those things. and even with these kind of research development activities are most successfully accomplished. it's not all going to be done by the coast guard r&d center.

this need to be done by other government r&d centers, and a lot of private or academic r&d centers, or in some cases partnering with our overseas partners. we've seen a lot of good work done in europe, particularly up in northern europe where they've had some pretty catastrophic oil spills. so, the issue then comes down to funding. and i will be the first one to admit that. and i think dave mentioned this, that following that legislation which set the whole system up very effectively, the funding lasted for a couple of years, and then, and then that was it. it's been down to a million, maybe even less per year for the last decade or so. so, i think that's where the challenge lies. i think that we probably are going to have another oil spill.

we only have to look at the history here and see that every 10 or 20 years something like this happens. the next one is probably going to be in an area that's even more challenging than this is. i think, you know, one of the lessons learned here is not unlike the events that caused the modern coast guard to exist, which is the titanic hitting the iceberg 100 years ago. and that is that oftentimes we get ahead of ourselves in our ability to design things to make our lives better, whether it's a ship to get us across the atlantic ocean in 1912, or whether it's a means to be able to extract oil in mile deep water. and we need to keep up with

those contingency plans and those resources and those technologies that go with the what if. and so that's what we're dealing with. when you look out 20 years from now, we may be drilling for oil in the arctic. we may come in extremely deepwater, get to get oil. or we may be using some form of transportation that involves liquefied natural gas. to actually reduce our carbon footprint, or whatever it might be. but are we going be prepared for the unexpected accident that occurs? and are we going to be thinking about the security needed to prevent a man made a current? i think dave mentioned that actually this wasn't the worst

incident that occurred in history of the world. the worst incident was due to a terrorist event. so we've got a lot to think about, and i'd like to see if any of the other panels have any other comments. >> did you see those pictures that were shown by presenters of the -- it's a no fee current buster. nofi. so we are also looking at what the private sector is doing. the government doesn't -- we are constrained, right? and yes, we need to be doing some research and development, but there's a significantly more money and able to research and development and is there for people that might be a responsible party for operating a pipeline or a supertanker, equipment we don't operate. so we're also in addition to this research the apple talked about, we are continually

polling the private sector's capability. they sent people to trade shows and evaluate. and we get mottos of this to test and we put that in our inventory. that's on skimming and booming site. i don't know if you're fully with the marine will contain the corporation, so subsequent to this oil spill, multiple independent and large oil companies have formed a nonprofit organization. they put a billion dollars into it and what the goal is to be able to capital well at 10,000 feet, 50,000 barrels a day. said that equipment has already started to move to a warehouse and the way to ensure test that equipment offshore. the problem is standardization. everyone slower growing ricer package isn't all the same but the goal is to have a piece of equipment that is deployable,

relatively quickly and has been tested. if you get into the containment faced much earlier than was done in this case. as the apple stated, most of the other one into the environment that was recovered was recovered via containment and not by skimming or booming. >> i want to make one thing clear. i kind of make fun of the snake oil salesmen. in the business i'm in we couldn't survive without vendors that have research and development departments that support the end-user. so be sure and know that i'm a friend of the vendors. i didn't mean that to any kind of negative light when i called the snake oil salesmen. i hope you know what i was talking about with individuals who bring something to the fight that has absolutely no value to it, but selling or able to sell. i think think the other thing, we talked about it just a minute

ago. we've got to tap into this private industry resources. the federal pipeline, federal money stream for research and development is very limited. and i call it the snooze alarm effect. the bp event takes place or the exxon valdez or hurricane katrina, and we start to focus on that. what were the problems, how do we resolve the. and the alarm goes off and it wakes us up. six months from now the alarm goes off, we tap the snooze and was sleep for 10 more minutes. a year from now we slap the snooze three more times. we snooze for 30 minutes. i think we lose the passion, enthusiasm base on the event. we've got to engage in the private industry. who not only has the funding for it but also has the greatest risk and the greatest possibility for loss of revenue in the event you have another event like this.

>> i'm from the naval graduate school. when this event first rolled out, there was a lot of confusion on emergency management side because it's different, it's an oil spill. there's different regulations. where's the stafford act, all of these things you were doing? and when you bring up the issue, admiral, about what if this was a terrorist attack happening? how would we respond and how it emergency management or the control, the command and control be different in that type of event? how are we preparing for the so emergency management is ready? >> that's a great question. one of the things that is built into the emergency system that we used for hurricanes or we used for terrorist attacks is the esf-10, which is the emergency support function oil and hazardous material built right into the larger emergency response system. and so the consequence that is

oil or hazardous materials of any event, whether it's, could be a storm. we mentioned the tanks that failed during katrina, or could be a blowout or could be a terrorist attack. it's going to be pretty much the same. one of the challenges is, if it's not a responsible party situation like we had here, and it exceeds our oil spill liability trust fund, then we got a little bit of a challenge there. but i think the biggest challenge really is that. there should not be a problem with access to the response equipment, to the organizational structure, to the science and

support, to the communication system. i think, you know, it's fortunate that we actually are all a multi-mission for the most part. so those of us that are trained in responding to oil and hashes but are typically the same people that are going to be responding to a terrorism event, or an earthquake or a hurricane. it really is just different pots of money. and i think different, the roles reverse as sandy mentioned, in certain circumstances as to who's in charge. if it's a natural disaster, and actually anything related to the stafford act, which you mentioned, that would be, the governor would be the guy that we are all supporting. in this case, and it makes sense when you think about it, you

know, ready for offshore. this is not even something that originated in the state of louisiana. it should be a federal government response. and, in fact, it is. >> my answer to that would be that each emergency manager has to evaluate their risk, whether they be terrorism related or whether it be a man-made or natural disaster. and if you evaluate your risk and you prepare the best you can for a local response, to help resolve that issue, then it doesn't snowball and start to roll downhill. an example, we are in a severe drought, my two parishes. we've had 58 days above 100 degrees and we are you behind in rainfall which is unheard of in the state of louisiana. so i look at what is my risk? my risk is public and you are so i've gone and i thought, what it takes to go from a four-inch cam

lock on the national guard tankers to power, be able to the water public thinking system. at a simple example that i've looked at what might risks are and what my responsibility to be ready to respond to that risk, and you have the ability or do we need to engage my private industry. for instance, we have lots of players come through. we have a lot of fun. typically were not in this drought situation so i've engaged one of my vendors is granger. others are lowe's, home depot, wal-mart. what do you have in stock of what can i get from if i just call and say i need it, and we worry about who pays forever. so developing those with a private industry with the resources you need because the government agencies typically will not have that. i guess they're running us off. >> on that note -- >> i think they're giving us the warning. it's 1130 time that. i believe there's a lunch break now.

and i appreciate everyone's a tendency. i thought there were some great question and i take we want to thank the panel. if we did give them one last round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> into this a congress created the commission on wartime contracting to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in iraq and afghanistan contracting.

>> am i not surprised you things coming to? >> their seats and live coverage of the house. >> live coverage of the senate on c-span2. >> each one's life event online at c-span.org. >> or see them whenever you want at this event to the library. >> c-span2 has nonfiction books every weekend. >> weekend on c-span3 explore american history tv. >> listen to us on your iphone.

>> for your blackberry. >> follow us on twitter. >> join us on facebook. >> its washington your weight with c-span. >> created by cable and provided as a public service. >> officials from federal and local emergency response agencies yesterday discussed the growing role of social networking, computerized mapping programs and other technologies. one speaker described how tweet about the recent earthquake on the east coast i actually reach in new york before the tremors were felt. the woodrow wilson international center for scholars hosted this event with a national for public safety gis foundation. it's two hours 10 minutes. >> let's get started. i want to thank you all for coming today. welcome to the wilson center. i work with the centrist sites and technology innovation program. our program is dedicated to helping governments, businesses and the public anticipate and manage new technologies. and their impacts.

we have today are director. i don't know if you want to raise your hand. we are less than a week, historic irking and even they rare east coast earthquake. so for all of us the vital role of the first responders play helping us figure out what's happening and what we need to do is very fresh in our memory. but it's not just the job approach. not even average citizens armed with smartphones have a role to play during man-made and natural disasters. the worldwide response to the haitian earthquake and the japanese tsunami provided vivid proof that these technologies and systems that use them are playing an increasingly important role. and emergency responses and recovery. it's difficult to overstate the significance of seachange we are witnessing. citizen our situational awareness. moves on with dramatic ways. via the internet volunteers from around the world translated and

match these requests. that allow first responders and traditional relief organizations to incorporate citizen-based information into the planning response operations. but new technologies come with strings attached in the form of new policy and legal questions. today session will focus on the liability and reliability of assistant generate information for disaster management. this will be the first in a series of monthly panels. organizing collaboration with the national alliance for public safety gis foundation. and other partners. which will address the public policy challenges that these emergent technology%. without like to turn the program over to our moderator, please help me in welcoming vice chairman of, we'll introduce our panel. >> thank you very much, lea. it's a pleasure to be here.

looking forward to the next two hours as we walk through this very, very interesting subject. as lea notes with a very distinguished panel of both represent both government and industry but i'd like to introduce them briefly now and you'll get a much more full introduction to them when each of them has an opportunity to speak to you. i'll start out to you right, to my left, and you're right. chief charles werner is a fire chief here in virginia. to his left is xenophon gikas. to his left is jodi cramer. to her left is deborah shaddon, a core team member infrastructure working group lead for crisis commons. thank you for being with us. to her left is governor jim geringer, former governor of wyoming and director of policy and public sector strategies. to his left is edward robson, an

attorney with robson & robson. thank you also for being here. and to his left, martin valentine, senior manager with usaa insurance the very distinguished panel. we thank you all for being with us and we thank all of you in the audience for being with us as we begin. you heard the national alliance for public safety gis mention very briefly. we want to talk about who we are. as you can see where a nonprofit organization. activation of that and that's very important to many of the members of the spam and many of you in the room are practitioners who have worked with us and spent some time in some of the leadership teams and practitioner network that we have run the country. as you can see we done regional leadership teams and have those established at nine fema region. 3000 plus practitioner networks spread across those regions over the last few years. we represent 800 plus state and

local agencies, represented in a way to have, too many of our working group sessions and many of our training sessions, and we're happy to have the state record with other organizations. we are certainly pleased to be here. why are we here today? you can see from the slides that are in front of you, all types of different emergencies, domestic and international mandate natural disasters, all have begun to see social networking and social media become a large part of these incidents. certainly here in just the last 10 days or so in a part of the country we are sitting in as lea reference we started to see that. we are faced with all types of different incidents. i can come in this area of the country. it's almost, brings a smile to your face. unfortunately, a disaster, but we look at the types of incidents these folks appear had to deal with, chief werner here

in virginia, who ever thought in the d.c. area we begin with rapid secession within earthquake and a hurricane? so many things are happening around the country and around the world. and then we need to worry about the day-to-day emergencies but as you see on the slide every day structure five, the everyday heart attack, the everyday law enforcement incident. again, talking that each of these at how social media is beginning more and more each day to play a part in these responses and in the information flow around those. fundamental consideration, technologies use in a major incident must also be used and a day-to-day incident. it's very difficult to gear up for public safety agencies to be able to do with social media into not doing on a day-to-day basis. so we think it's important that social media is something that is public safety agencies can and drain into their day-to-day operations for the small events i mentioned so that when a larger event occurs it's not something they're trying to do on-the-fly. we will talk more about that as

we move through the agenda today. let's talk about a few examples of those types of things. the map you see in front of you as noted is joplin, missouri, and the recent outbreak of tornadoes. this is an awareness, an example of the situation of awareness map that was stood up to support those efforts. the map pulls in multiple layers of information including topographic information, post-incident imagery and a few other layers of data that can be used and are used in certain incidents. this also includes some multiple scenes from location preference used in social media or other crowd sourced location reference information. and you are starting to more and more of that amounts are develop both by official agencies and nonofficial agencies. if you can see, it may be difficult on the slides, the photos were taken by citizens that have been uploaded bya