preparedness

This weekend, NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary System is kicking off the beginning of the national “Get into Your Sanctuary” Initiative. The sanctuary system protects America’s most iconic natural and cultural marine resources — many of which are open to public recreation. This initiative is a system-wide public outreach effort to raise awareness about our nation’s marine sanctuaries through site events and other activities.

Are you prepared for a disaster in your home or community? Of course you are, right? You have batteries in your flashlight. You have property insurance. You've identified your best evacuation route. You keep a list of emergency phone numbers handy ... That's all great! But are the batteries fresh? Is your insurance coverage adequate? Have better evacuation routes been created? Have those phone numbers changed?

When a disaster occurs, it’s critical that the organizations involved in the response can communicate and share information quickly and effectively.

That means groups as diverse and numerous as emergency management, fire service, law enforcement, emergency medical, and responders from local, state, tribal, and federal governments all need to be on the same page. At NOAA, we’re working with our partners to help ensure that the information responders need flows quickly and accurately—when they need it.

How do you handle a polar bear covered in oil?  That was just one aspect of the annual Mutual Aid Deployment exercise last month on Alaska’s North Slope oil field.

Staff members from our Emergency Response Division and the Assessment and Restoration Division as well as other NOAA offices participated in the three-day exercise. Each year government agencies, oil companies, and oil spill removal organizations in the region work together to respond to a simulated oil spill in Alaska.

As part of our ongoing commitment to share our expertise in spill response with other nations, the Emergency Response Division recently hosted a delegation from China’s National Marine Hazard Mitigation Service.

The Chinese agency requested the meeting to learn about our strategies and tools for responding to environmental hazards and to exchange information about China’s marine emergency response programs.

What does wearing a life jacket have in common with preventing oil spills? Wearing life jackets can save people’s lives; preventing small oil spills helps protect marine life.

National Safe Boating Week is May 22-26. As part of the campaign launch, the National Safe Boating Council, in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard, is encouraging people to wear life jackets to work on May 19. The Coast Guard estimates that over 80 percent of the lives lost to drowning could have been preventing by wearing life jackets.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration’s Emergency Response Division returned to Prince William Sound to use some of the old buried oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill to improve how we can find oil on the shoreline in the future.

This time, the key player was an enthusiastic black Labrador retriever named Pepper. This project is to validate and better understand the capabilities of trained oil detection canines to locate and delineate subsurface stranded oil. The results of the study have a high probability of immediate, short-term applications and long-term real benefits in the design and implementation of shoreline cleanup and assessment technique surveys for stranded oil.

The Arctic is one of the most remote regions on the planet but that may change as the sea ice continues to shrink, allowing for more ships, tourism, fishing, and possible oil exploration in the region. More activity also brings the possibility of oil spills and other environmental disasters.

How do the Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration work together? There are many waysthe two government organizations partner to keep the nation’s coasts and waterways safe for maritime commerce, recreational activities, and wildlife. Check out the five here:

For more than 200 years, the U.S. Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have partnered together in maritime resiliency, environmental sustainability and scientific research. In fact, a variety of NOAA projects encompassed over 50 percent of Coast Guard Cutter Healy operations for 2016, including a Coast Guard and NOAA collaborative effort to chart the extended continental shelf and survey marine habitats and biodiversity. Today, more than ever in the past, the Coast Guard and NOAA are working together on numerous levels of profession in the U.S. Arctic Region, which happens to be Coast Guard Alaska‘s northern area of responsibility, or AOR. From daily sector operations and district-led full scale exercises to partnering on the national level in workgroups under the Arctic Council, Coast Guard and NOAA have a strong working relationship supporting and representing the U.S. in cold weather operations and Arctic initiatives.