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NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration
Poised to Respond as Hurricane Season Starts
July 2, 2008
With the arrival of hurricane season,
NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R)
is prepared to respond quickly to hazardous material spill
incidents resulting from severe storm events. OR&R scientists
work with federal, state and local agencies to provide scientific
support and assistance before, during and after hurricanes
strike.
“NOAA, through the Office of Response
and Restoration, is part of the multi-agency response team
providing oil spill trajectories and environmental data so
that quick decisions can be made on where to collect oil and
what measures can be taken to protect critical environmental
resources” says Dave Westerholm, director of NOAA's
Office of Response and Restoration. “The federal
and state on-scene coordinators rely on NOAA’s ability
to provide accurate and timely on-scene scientific support,
overflights, meteorological data and modeling.”
Located around the country, OR&R’s Scientific Support
Coordinators work other divisions within NOAA, U.S. Coast
Guard and other response organizations by providing on scene
coordination and scientific support. The NOAA scientific team
assists with spill response, information management, search
and rescue missions, vessel groundings, lost or sunken oil
platforms, releases from coastal industrial facilities, and
other impacts from hurricanes.
OR&R also addresses longer-term recovery
efforts including assessment and removal of hazardous and
non-hazardous marine debris, natural resource damage
assessment, and restoration of coastal habitats.
“It is important to understand that
as a natural resource trustee, NOAA has the added responsibility
of assessing any coastal oil or hazardous material impact
and developing an appropriate restoration strategy for that
area,” adds Westerholm. “Assessment and
restoration extend well beyond the initial response and cleanup,
and often involves all the response agencies and impacted
communities.”
 During the 2005 hurricane season, NOAA OR&R
staff responded to multiple storms and staffed nine command
posts in four different states. One of these storms was Hurricane
Katrina. Even before Hurricane Katrina hit land, OR&R
was preparing for its impact, providing critical infrastructure
assessments, discussing possible points of impact, and coordinating
critical personnel in the region.
OR&R performed overflights to evaluate reports of numerous
oil spills and vessel sinkings and provided environmental
review to the U.S. Coast Guard to address more than 3,000
stranded or sunken vessels. OR&R is still working today
to identify and develop abatement strategies for marine debris
that was moved to the coastal waters from this hurricane.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to
enhancing economic security and national safety through the
prediction and research of weather and climate-related events
and information service delivery for transportation, and by
providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal
and marine resources. Through the emerging Global
Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA
is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries
and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring
network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts
and protects.
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