Share and share alike
Virtual USA, the Department of Homeland Security's new information sharing endeavor, does not dictate users purchase new platforms or conform to someone else's system
From the July 2010 Issue
By Sara Schreiber
Emergency managers and responders on ground level still count information sharing among their biggest obstacles when it comes to navigating disasters. Despite applications that promise to help ease the challenge, synching up these systems among individual agencies is another matter entirely. In February of 2009, the Department of Homeland Security began a pilot program for an information sharing solution that could ultimately allow its users to share real-time information fast between multiple jurisdictions, on any platform, using only existing software. Before testing on Virtual USA was even completed, emergency managers minding the effects of an unprecedented oil spill on the Gulf Coast were asking how they could get their hands on it.
Hurricanes, wild fires and beyond
David Boyd, director of command control and interoperability in the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) insists Virtual USA is "limited only by your imagination." The beauty lies in the fact that the solution is both application and platform agnostic -- it can be used with ESRI, Google Earth Enterprise, mobile public versions of Google Earth, Microsoft Bing Maps ... anything that has a geographic capability. Whether a tornado hits a small town or a passenger jet is barreling towards a government headquarters, any information that is of importance to responders starts at a local level. It is necessary that such information is disseminated quickly and accurately to the people who need it.
About three years ago when a hurricane struck Alabama's coast, the state's governor had a hard time seeing the damage in real time as it unfolded. The State of Alabama sought help from the Department of Homeland Security, in hopes they could find a way to expand an application, initially based on Google Earth, that would allow them to use mapping and imagery to geographically focus on what was actually happening on the ground. They wanted to compare previous imagery to photographs they'd taken after the incident.
A similar thing happened in Virginia. When a series of wild land fires tore through the state, it was discovered a local operations center -- then trying to keep tabs on the blaze -- had 18 different Web pages open at the same time. After having requested an of-the-moment map of the fires, the emergency manager was presented with an image that was, by then, three hours old. They needed an alternative. What if they had access to an application that pulled together all types of information on a map so any necessary information would be geographically related, and could be shared with whomever desired access? In fact, it is entirely possible.
Working with what you've got
"Once we found these two [states] we said, 'Okay ... our experience has been it's incredibly difficult to try to develop a single system and have every state or every organization come on board,'" recalls Boyd. "So we said, we can work with you and see if we can figure out how to pull information from one of these systems to the other, and allow each of you to see the other's information on your own viewer.
"We were able to quickly demonstrate that we could, in fact, do that. And that led to the creation of what we called the Southeast Regional Operation pilot platform."
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