Coast Guard Response Research Articles

Response and fatigue assessment of high speed aluminium hulls using short-term wireless hull monitoring

This paper proposes a wireless hull monitoring system that is quick to install as a short-term monitoring solution. Hull measurements have the potential to increase the accuracy of ship response predictions at a lower cost than computer simulation or towing tank models. The performance of the wireless monitoring system is validated on the all-aluminium United States Coast Guard Response Boat-Medium. The system is designed to measure ship motions and hull strain responses during high-speed operations and in harsh weather conditions. An analytical framework is developed to extract sea states from inertial measurements recorded at the ship centre-of-gravity and in a bow compartment. To assess the fatigue life of the hull during harsh weather operations, response amplitude operators (RAOs) are empirically derived to map sea states to root mean square accelerations and strain cycles measured from a high-stress hull element. A RAO that maps sea state to consumed fatigue in the hull, so termed a consumed fatigue operator (CFO), is presented which can assist in the management of an asset over its life cycle. The study reveals reliable hull monitoring during a one-week sea trial. RAO and CFO fit to hull response data are proven to provide accurate estimates.

Successful Resuscitation: Novel Partnership between Paramedics and U.S. Coast Guard

In this article, we present a notable case that illustrates a novel partnership between a United States Coast Guard small boat station and a civilian paramedic response unit. Patients who experience medical emergencies in remote environments are at particularly high risk for morbidity and mortality. For the most serious conditions, delayed contact with Advanced Life Support (ALS) has grave results. Typically, these circumstances involve small groups of individuals and cannot be easily predicted. The waters off the coasts of Maui, Hawaii, however, host millions of residents and visitors annually, with activities including swimming, snorkeling, diving, parasailing, and other types of ocean recreation. As a result, medical and rescue emergencies are not uncommon, many with poor outcomes. Prior to October of 2013, a Coast Guard response boat crew with limited medical training and equipment responded to most off shore cases. Since October 2013, a paramedic from Maui County EMS co-responds aboard the Coast Guard boat with a full complement of ALS equipment. This partnership has resulted in some significant improvements in patient outcome, and strengthened a collaborative emergency services system. The experience has also indicated the need for continued improvement in early activation and communication, as well as reinforcing the importance of primary prevention.

Revisions to the OSRO and Prep Guidelines: What's that about?1

ABSTRACT The Coast Guard's Oil Spill Removal Organization (OSRO) Classification Program Guidelines and National Preparedness for Response Exercise Program (PREP) Guidelines are periodically reviewed and revalidated. The OSRO program, managed by the National Strike Force Coordination Center (NSFCC), affords plan holders relief from having to include extensive equipment lists within already lengthy plans. It also gives government plan reviewers a national standard against which to evaluate response contractors listed in plans. The PREP Guidelines offer a cycle of internal and external exercises to be followed in the preparedness cycle of plonning and assessment by government and industry members of the response community. For years, these programs enjoyed support from both government and industry. Recently, however, response community rumblings revealed growing doubt about the usefulness of these standards in assuring response readiness. This skepticism threatened to undermine both programs. The government responded by engaging industry through a series of meetings and public workshops to examine concerns and identify solutions. In the process, two critical findings revealed what had changed: 1) While initial regulatory momentum was high following enactment of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, industry and government plan holder focus had been slowly diverted to competing priorities; 2) The OSRO and PREP Guidelines, originally envisioned as tools to guide plan holders, had become a vehicles for plan holder acceptance of NSFCC evaluations of OSRO adequacy without local user analysis, and of OSRO exercises as sufficient without plan holder participation or oversight. The Coast Guard's response has been to overhaul each program's policy guideline to clarify the original intent of the response plan regulations. The success of these efforts hinges on their effectiveness to reemphasize that ultimate accountability falls on the shoulders of plan holders at the local level under active government oversight.

Synfuel: A Marine Transportation Risk Assessment

ABSTRACT Coal synthetic fuels have attractive tax incentives. The primary consumers of the coal synthetic fuels (synfuel) are power plants and coke plants. Some of these synfuels consist of approximately 99% coal and 1% oil emulsion. Unfortunately, these synfuels produce sheens in the marine environment when accidentally released. The sheens prompt a Coast Guard response with pollution fines and costly mitigation efforts. There are no current regulatory requirements for the marine transportation of synfuel. Treating the synfuels as an oil product from a marine transportation perspective would be cost prohibitive; treating the synfuels as coal may not be conducive to the marine environment; somewhere between the two extremes lies an economically, environment-friendly solution. In the absence of regulatory guidance, the Coast Guard initiated a twoday risk assessment to evaluate the risks of synfuel to the marine environment. The risk assessment focused on the marine transportation related (MTR) processes of loading, unloading, fleeting and transporting synfuel. Standards of Care were developed by a 25-member workgroup of industry representatives and regulators. The Standards of Care will be voluntarily selfimposed by industry to prevent and respond to releases of synfuels, which sheen in the marine environment. Those companies not adhering to the Standards of Care will receive little or no consideration from Coast Guard Captains Of The Port when violations of the Clean Water Act are investigated.

Training the Masses: Teaching ICS over the World Wide Web

ABSTRACT In March 2000, instructors from the Marine Safety Port Operations School at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown in Yorktown, Virginia delivered Incident Command System (ICS) 200-level training over the World Wide Web. The ICS Web-based training was part of an ensemble of courses that were offered over the Web to evaluate a software package developed by an independent contractor and to measure the effectiveness of Web-based training in the U.S. Coast Guard. Students throughout the United States, including Alaska, participated in the training using their personal or work computers. A number of students successfully met the objectives of the ICS 200 training without leaving their locale. To evaluate the efficacy of delivery, students were given pretests and posttests to measure their knowledge of ICS both before and after the training. The course consisted of two 4-hour Web-based delivery sessions using the National Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS) curriculum for ICS 200. The U.S. Coast Guard adopted NIIMS ICS as the standardized response management system for all Coast Guard response operations and faces the task of providing the appropriate ICS training to all its members. Currently, Coast Guard ICS training is being provided at resident courses within the Coast Guard Marine Safety Schools and by field instructors. The advantages, foibles, and lessons learned from this Web-based training experiment as well as the future of using the Internet for delivery of ICS courses are discussed.

Developing a Technological Tool for Managing Complex Environmental Incidents1

ABSTRACT This paper will discuss the U.S. Coast Guard's response to the need for technological solutions to the incident management challenges posed by oil spills and hazardous material releases. Additionally, this paper will examine some of the difficulties presented by technology itself; that is to say, technological tools come with both implicit and explicit ramifications that must be understood and overcome in order to fully harness the potential contained within such capabilities. With the advent of both the public and Congress demanding increasingly effective spill response and fiscal conservancy, the Coast Guard has sought technological innovations to enhance its ability to coordinate and manage complex, multi-agency response operations. Through the development of the On-Scene Command and Control (OSC2) system, the Coast Guard intends to bring the potential leverage of computer-based technology to the Incident Command System (ICS) by harnessing the advantages of large-screen display, relational databases, and a Geographic Information System (GIS) for mapping response resources and activities. The decision-support and resource tracking advantages produced by OSC2 are expected to contribute mightily to improve performance within the Unified Command/ICS organization. However, the challenges posed by the implementation of OSC2 cannot be ignored. Factors ranging from human resource inhibitions and training requirements to blending individual technical components into a seamless whole must be considered when technological tools are designed, developed, and employed. Technology is not inherently good or bad, but remains always contextual—it is dependent on the intervening factors introduced by the human condition in which it is imagined and then utilized. This paper will discuss these issues and describe the key elements in achieving the success of OSC2 as one of the Coast Guard's spill response management tools.

Coast Guard Response to the Volgoneft 263 Oil Spill

ABSTRACT On the morning of May 14, 1990, a collision occurred between the Soviet tanker Volgonef 1263 and the West German dry cargo ship Betty off the south coast of Sweden. One Coast Guard air surveillance aircraft and one oil spill recovery ship arrived at the site less than two hours after the collision. The Coast Guard considered the threat to the marine environment to be serious and therefore ordered not only the most effective Swedish oil spill recovery resources to the place, but also requested assistance from U.S.S.R., F.R.G., Denmark, and Finland. After less than 48 hours, 26 Coast Guard, Naval, and foreign ships were fighting the spill. The operation lasted for 13 days and practically all the oil was recovered before it reached shore. The operation showed that using modern oil spill recovery equipment it is possible to recover practically all the oil at sea and also showed that international cooperation can be quick and efficient, if, as in this case, an agreement of cooperation has already been reached.

Coast Guard Response to Oil Spills

Coast Guard Response to Oil Spills