Deepwater Horizon's influence on contingency planning
In an exclusive for ContingencyToday.com, the US Coast Guard's Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil, describes the response to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and how it is influencing future US national contingency plans, including the development of a common operational picture, or COP, through use of GPS, Automatic Identification System, and Geographic Information Systems
The largest oil-spill response in the history of the United States, a Spill of National Significance involving more than 6,300 vessels, 35,000 personnel, 17 staging areas, 2.57 million feet of containment boom and 4.17 million feet of sorbent boom, began as do most all tragedies to which the U.S. Coast Guard responds - with a desperate call for help to a watchstander in a Coast Guard Command Center. As the event grew in complexity and magnitude, the command structure developed and expanded proportionately, from an incident managed on the watchfloor of the command center to one managed by a National Incident Command and a Unified Area Command.
The Coast Guard's 8th District command center in New Orleans received the digital selective call April 20 at about 6:57 p.m., from the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon located in the Gulf of Mexico's Mississippi Canyon block 252, approximately 45 nautical miles southeast of Main Pass, La., with 144 souls aboard. A report made from a rig 25 nautical miles away reported people in the water and that the rig was fully engulfed in flames. A swift and massive search and rescue effort launched immediately that would eventually cover 5,375 square miles through 28 air and surface sorties. Despite the efforts of those on scene, 11 people perished in the accident and on April 22, the Deepwater Horizon was lost to the depths of the Gulf of Mexico.
Concurrent with the need to manage current ops for the response to the accident, was the need to plan for subsequent operations including mounting the oil spill response and the investigation into how the accident happened. Making the transition from search and rescue to spill response operations, and other correlating operations, is the work of the Coast Guard's 8th District Commander, Rear Adm. Mary Landry.
"It is common to have a search and rescue case underway and have it associated with not only a pollution case, but also a marine casualty investigation," said Landry. "There are initial plans in place to commence both marine casualty investigation and pollution response with a clear understanding that search and rescue and saving lives come first. All actions that are taken are taken so as not to interfere with search and rescue."
According to Landry the 8th District Command Center had the lead for search and rescue while Marine Safety Unit Morgan City led the marine casualty investigation. MSU Morgan City conferred with both Coast Guard Sector New Orleans and the 8th District as appropriate assets were being pulled together to initiate the appropriate steps for the pollution response.
Immediately recognizing the potential for a major oil spill that would span multiple Coast Guard sector commands and the need to manage the search and rescue operation, Landry's chief of staff, Capt. James Tunstall, went to the district's command center, to provide senior oversight for the operation while keeping Landry informed and up to date. At the same time, senior leaders within the district staff were in contact with the district's coastal sectors, discussing how the event would transition to a Gulf Coast-wide response, with Landry serving as the Federal on Scene Coordinator and the sector commands standing up incident command posts. The first signs of oil leaking from the riser and the drill pipe were observed April 24, prompting the establishment of a Unified Area Command and a Joint Information Center.
"We worked from worst-case scenario discussions from the start and it became evident that the potential for full Gulf Coast impact existed, so it was logical to have the district commander serve as the FOSC for the event," said Landry.
The expansion of the unified command to the unified area command was not without the same challenges found in other complex responses where people from a variety of organizations with diverse backgrounds have to meet and work together to achieve a common objective.
"It was remarkable to have every cabinet level secretary involved from very early on, including our secretary of DHS, along with DOI, Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, EPA Administrator, Head of NOAA under DOC, and even White House officials and senior staff including Carol Brunner and Valerie Jarrett," said Landry. "What was not easy was integrating everyone quickly and smoothly for a response of this complexity, scale, novelty, and scope. We were obviously storming and forming under a National Incident Management System construct with the Incident Command System, but everyone asks the question 'who is in charge' and folks do not have patience with the necessary deliberative process when you are juggling various statutory authorities and jurisdictions along with State's rights, etc. Everyone understood the value in an NCP response but we had never initiated an NCP response of this magnitude since OPA 90 was legislated and certainly not since the responses to nationally significant events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina."
That "complexity, scale, novelty, and scope" of the spill and the potential for a full Gulf Coast impact drove the Federal government April 29, to declare the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill a Spill of National Significance, as defined in Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 300 – the National Contingency Plan. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, under authority of Homeland Security Presidential Directive Five, designated Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen as the National Incident Commander May1.
"Because Admiral Allen's leadership has been so critical to our coordinated response to the BP oil spill, I have asked him — and he has agreed — to stay on as National Incident Commander," said Napolitano. "I commend his dedication to continuing to lead our administration-wide efforts to ensure that every available resource is leveraged efficiently and effectively to mitigate the spill's impacts."
"Since this event began, my focus has been on managing the all-hands-on-deck response to this ongoing incident," said Allen. "Remaining in my current role as the National Incident Commander after being relieved as the Commandant [May 25] will allow me to focus solely on this critical response, and Admiral Papp [Coast Guard Commandant] on the vital work of the Coast Guard."
From the Unified Area Command's perspective the declaration of a Spill of National Significance and the naming of a National Incident Commander provided the means to access to the breadth of resources across the Federal government.
"The obvious benefits of the NIC were that the NIC was able to manage the extraordinary national and even international level issues and work with the President and others to hammer out and resolve some very complex and impactful issues, allowing the response to go forward," said Landry.
"The role of the NIC is to create unity of effort and empower this response," said Allen. "Because this is a whole of government response, our thinking and planning includes every resource of the government. The NIC, as well as the UAC and ICPs, merges government forces (and in this case private forces as well) to ensure the proper legal authorities, capabilities and competencies are all in place."
The show of force that comes with Allen's "all-hands-on-deck" approach may cause many observers to compare the response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to that of the spill that spawned the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Allen however believes the current response is much more complex than and less similar to the Exxon Valdez response.
"This event has gone beyond the parameters of an 'incident' and should be viewed more as a campaign," said Allen. "In that regard we have leveraged lessons less from an incident like Valdez and more from our post 9/11 operations, which had to evolve in order to meet operational requirements."
Those changing operational requirements have required the command structure to rapidly adapt in both form and function to maintain situational awareness and command and control.
"Our greatest challenges have been in continuously assessing, changing, and improving our command and control, span of control and management of assets," said Allen. "Because this spill has continually changed in character, complexity, geographical extent and impact it has been our responsibility to adapt, develop better tactics, employ new technologies, create new teams and partnerships and leverage our relationships with state and local governments. Other challenges have included the coordination of aerial surveillance, establishment of efficient tactical communications, and certainly the technical and environmental complexities associated with the depth of the source."
As with all response activities, there is a desire to capture best practices, learn from experience, and improve the living documents and contingency plans that provide the doctrine for effective emergency management. The response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is poised to serve as the genesis for the next generation of national contingency plans.
"We have already begun to change the way the Coast Guard and Federal government responds to oil spills," said Allen. "The demands of this spill have challenged the response framework envisioned in OPA 90 and promulgated in the NCP. We've begun to develop a NIC Strategy Implementation Guidance which will serve as the guide to how we will move beyond the NCP framework to prosecute this response and prepare for potential campaigns of this sort. This Strategy Implementation Guidance will include the development of a Common Operational Picture, or COP, through use of Global Positioning System, Automatic Identification System and recent improvements to Geographic Information Systems.
The lessons learned from this campaign should be used to create a new framework that transcends the NCP and serves us and the Nation best – now and in the future."
Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil, Chief, Strategic Communications, National Incident Command
202-372-4635/Christopher.t.o'neil@uscg.mil
