In planning for regional, large-scale, or catastrophic incidents, whose impacts likely cover several counties or states, a uniform point & area reference system for defining operational areas will enhance critical situational awareness. To paraphrase from the Army Field Manual, the US Army defines situational awareness as knowledge and understanding of the current situation which promotes timely, relevant and accurate assessment of operations within the impacted areas in order to facilitate decision making. It is an informational perspective and skill that fosters an ability to determine quickly the context and relevance of events that are unfolding. It is easy to see that the importance of a geographic reference system to assist in maintaining situational awareness cannot be overstated when an event stretches across all levels of governmental boundaries, and across responding disciplines with the specific needs of each.
Situational awareness for responders, emergency operations staff, and senior decision & policy makers has always been challenging. A well integrated operational picture is especially difficult in events that result in wide area impacts causing intelligence to come from multiple directions simultaneously. Distilling a steady stream of data into actionable information across various operational areas is essential to affective disaster operations.
Though every large-scale or catastrophic incident after action report dating back to Hurricane Andrew calls for a common reference system; the need for a common and geographic based reference system was made clear again during the exceptionally busy Hurricane Seasons of 2004 & 2005. The State of Florida became intimately familiar with this need during response operations that stretched across all areas of the state over a six (6) week period. Multiple operational areas crossing all levels of government often resulted in confusion as personnel and resources were moved from one side of the state to the other in rapid succession. Additionally, the need became apparent for a geographically based system that could be used by responders to indicate to command staff at various levels when specific missions were underway or completed in a particular area. Traditional municipal or county/parish borders proved unworkable since the impacts of an event do not adhere to governmental boundaries, and as has been demonstrated in every major event since Hurricane Andrew, traditional methods of describing location (street address, landmarks, etc are often destroyed or so dramatically impacted that they’re unrecognizable even to local responders.
The United States National Grid (USNG) is the geographic grid reference system identified by the National SAR Committee as the primary catastrophic incident search and rescue geo-referencing system that must be used by federal land SAR responders. Additionally, the USNG has been designated as the primary reference grid for interfacing between land and air based SAR operations. Other non-federal responders across local and state jurisdictions have been in the process of adopting the Grid as well. It is important to note that US military assets, one of the largest force multipliers in disaster response operations, uses a grid system which is functionally the same as the USNG, known as the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS). Land based DoD responders are therefore able to share location based information and readily interpret areas of operation defined using the Grid immediately upon joining disaster operations. Additionally, situational awareness can be shared across multiple levels of government not to mention between civilian and military command staff.
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