Why Does the Gulf of Mexico Need a Disaster Response Center?

Why is NOAA building a Disaster Response Center in the Gulf region? Images from a recent NOAA-wide photo contest tell the story.

Over the past decade, the greater Gulf of Mexico region has faced both natural and human-caused disasters, including hurricanes, oil spills, tornadoes, droughts, harmful algal blooms, and wildfire. While we often can’t prevent these severe events, we can reduce their impacts by helping to prepare federal, state, and local decision makers for a variety of threats. We can also use cutting-edge technology and the most up-to-date information to make coastal communities more resilient.

NOAA contributes a variety of services before, during, and after these kinds of disasters, from forecasting the paths of hurricanes to restoring the environment after an oil spill. Until recently, however, there was no central point in the Gulf of Mexico to coordinate access to these vital products and services.  Construction of NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center (DRC) [leaves this blog] in Mobile, Ala., is nearly complete, and the facility will streamline the delivery of NOAA services that will help the region prepare for and deal with disasters.

To gear up for the DRC’s grand opening, NOAA employees submitted photographs highlighting three areas: disaster impacts to human infrastructure, disaster impacts to the environment, and disaster response activities along the Gulf Coast. The photos themselves show most clearly the need for a Disaster Response Center in the Gulf.

Disaster Impacts to Human Infrastructure

Barbara Ambrose, a graphic artist with NOAA’s National Coastal Data Development Center in Mississippi, took her first-place photograph Folded House in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. The picture was taken on Beach Boulevard in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina severely damaged the city of Bay St. Louis and is the most destructive storm on record in terms of economic losses.

Disaster Impacts to the Environment

Ron Wooten, a biologist with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service in Galveston, Texas, took his first-place photograph Sticking Together on April 29, 2010. While flying over the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill, Wooten captured the image of a large pod of striped dolphins swimming through rows of orange-colored, weathered oil that extended for miles. As the nation’s leading scientific resource for oil spills, NOAA was on the scene from the start, providing coordinated weather and biological response services to federal, state, and local organizations.

Disaster Response

Ed Levine, Scientific Support Coordinator with NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, took his first place photograph USCG Rescue Swimmer Perspective 2 on September 5, 2005. The image was taken in the midst of rescue operations conducted in New Orleans, La., following Hurricane Katrina, which will be remembered as one of the largest search-and-rescue operations in the history of the United States.

Winning photographs will be showcased throughout the new Disaster Response Center.  You can find all of the incredible photo contest entries at http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/drc/contest/ [leaves this blog].

Read more at NOAA Office of Response and Restoration