US Coast Guard Drives Key Bridge Response with Geospatial Data and Interagency Relationships

In March 2024, many woke up to the tragic news of the Francis Scott Key Bridge incident in Baltimore, Maryland. The incident killed several people and injured others, damaged infrastructure, obstructed key waterways, and affected the intake and distribution of commercial goods for the United States.

What followed this tragic event is a successful example of interagency response and interoperability, led by the US Coast Guard (USCG) and involving collaboration with over 2,000 government and private sector professionals. Agencies across the entire government shared the commitment to safely assess the damage, monitor its impact, and facilitate a cleanup and repair effort. To ensure operability and drive an efficient and collaborative response, they turned to ArcGIS Online.

With this level of damage, it was predicted that recovery would take months. Keen to be quick and efficient with their response, USCG personnel made the intentional decision at the start of their response to lead with geospatial data management, collection, and visualization to aid their work. The successful response started with USCG’s unified incident command post (ICP) at the Port of Baltimore’s cruise ship terminal, which acted as the technology hub that leveraged spatial data to generate resources. USCG partnered with federal agencies like the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State of Maryland Departments of Natural Resources and Information Technology, the City of Baltimore, the Esri Disaster Response Program, and Esri partner Spire Global. These collaborations provided key spatial information to launch a unified response to the disaster.

USCG personnel did not just decide to do spatial data workflows with their partners on the day of the incident; they had been intentionally building greater geographic information system (GIS) capabilities for years, so they knew the power of the technology. As the USCG team members began to lay out their command structure, they successfully ensured that an ArcGIS support team was recognized as part of the incident command structure. This allowed GIS specialists to centralize the technology infrastructure, meet data needs, and communicate effectively among the partners involved.

“ArcGIS Online really enabled the interagency data sharing element of our work,” said US Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Ian Hanna. “Each agency had their own online portal, and this allowed us to share data in real time and, overall, just improve the response effort. We were able to move information that is typically exclusively shared via PDFs, Excel attachments, and emails, which can cause delays.”

The USCG team utilized ArcGIS Hub to bring together all the tools and data into one convenient location. The team also began using other products like ArcGIS Dashboards; they created a dashboard that ended up providing the common operation picture (COP) for their efforts. The dashboard was a vital tool, essential for synthesizing information from multiple agencies. The main inspiration for the team’s COP was Esri’s Emergency Management Operations solution, which led to not only questions but also requests to build customized applications and tools that were based on the needs of the responders.

Another success of the interagency response came from using dashboards at the ICP to monitor the scene and maintain situational awareness. A key piece of this success was the aerial imagery element—shared by NOAA—which was configured into a dashboard within the first few days of the incident. Throughout the response, staff regularly updated the imagery by using drones to capture the progress of the response.

To keep the response participants aware of all moving elements, the GIS specialists created a data feed to monitor the scene and bring in live vessel locations provided by AIS, a ship transponder system which broadcasts the location of merchant vessels. Also, an initial data feed was donated by Spire for the initial days of the response. The specialists’ feed was generated by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources land-based AIS and marine radar system to ensure the reliability of the data. With this tool, the COP helped agencies maintain awareness of the vessels that were on the scene, and allowed the response teams to see if anything was out of place.

“If this was done manually, it would be extremely difficult and time-consuming, given the nature of our response,” said Hanna.

With the scene divided into different zones, personnel used GIS to deconflict work, which was important for performing the salvage efforts and conducting safe operations. Staff used the COP to visualize the zones and align agency terminology to ensure that dive safety zones were respected and that there was awareness of when divers were active. Dive contractors were able to report dive operations on the COP—once any closed zones were reported, they would appear red. Everyone monitoring the COP would see this, reducing the potential for communications system errors and providing everyone with the same up-to-date vital safety information.

As the operation continued and temporary channels were being opened, it was fundamental to start developing and sharing plans for future operations. ArcGIS Hub was used to create a hub site that allowed everyone to review, iterate, and see plans in development.

However, the group overseeing the development of the plans had sole editing and data access. This hub site was used for opening temporary channels that routed vessels around the salvage operations and any other underwater hazards. One key element of the planning effort was visualizing water depth and active hazards. This data—collected using sonar and hydrographic survey data provided by NOAA and USACE boats—would eventually be used for buoy position to ensure the safety of the vessels.

The unified efforts of the contributing agencies led to the successful reopening of the Port of Baltimore. Within one week, traffic of small commercial watercraft was allowed through the area. The main channel to one-way transits was reopened within 30 days, and the entire ship channel was fully reopened in 76 days—much sooner than originally expected.

Maryland governor Wes Moore congratulated the teams, saying, “We did the unimaginable. Instead of an 11-month response, we got this done in 11 weeks. ”

“ArcGIS Online and partnered collaboration played a significant role in planning and coordinating operations. But it’s only one of many parts of a truly massive effort that allowed us to safely reopen the waterways for the Port of Baltimore,” said Amilynn Adams, deputy division chief, US Coast Guard.