DEP Press Advisory on Deer Hunting Cancellation, October 2, 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document Site Hazards 9/21/20D1 OR»139i-WY New York City

tors to see if the fuel was feeding the '■fe fires. (Often it was). Rescue teams would then decide where to work that Egil day, based on the patterns. >. One tool often used in conjunction with G.I.S. is a Global Positioning System device, which can determine a location by using satellite transmis­ sions. G.P.S. units do not work well at the disaster site, however, because Hatiqmqfcieams the surrounding tall buildings inter­ fere with the satellite signals. Rescue workers must instead count out steps and plot their positions on their own 9k * within the grids on the maps. But even without the precision of G.P.S. units, people involved in the rescue effort agree that the Geo­ graphic Information System is a cru­ Ji cial tool. “I can’t stress how impor­ 0 125 Z5£ so: —, '" 75: :—-I Fee- tant it is, and it’s so easy to put Federal Emergency Management Agenc' together and do,” said James Lee An aerial photograph of the World Trade Center site with overlaid loca­ Witt, the director of FEMA. “It’s tions of hazards like fires, overhead cranes and hanging debris. amazing that you can take a building like the World' Trade Center and put that information into the G.I.S. and be

Mapping the Hazards able to put a plan in place.” The ability to maintain a well-or­ ganized, readily available archive is another advantage, one that will come uer in handy this week as some members of the Urhan Cparrh and Rescue Re- sponse System finish their work in At one point Mr. Sekins used a New York and turn over the G.I.S. By CATHERINE GREENMAN World Trade Center shopping guide to archives to the Fire Department. draw a map of unstable buildings anc “We’re leaving a very solid record of

w HEN Glenn Sekins arrived on Sept. 12 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, a staging area for rescue operations after the attacks on the World Trade other dangerous structures. He made copies at a Kinko’s copy center and handed them out to the rescue teams. When computers and G.I.S. opera­ tors arrived, Mr. Sekins said, “We events, so we’re sure the transition will be smooth,” Mr. Sekins said.

Center, he took a black felt-tip mark­ could finally let the computer do er and drew a crude map of the something that it would take a skilled streets and buildings at the disaster worker hours and hours to do.’' site on a piece of cardboard left ovei from a trade show. As situation unit leader for the Na­ Using four G.I.S. workstations and two color plotters at the Javits center, Mr. Sekins and his team have been hi tional Urban Search and Rescue Re­ sponse System, a task force estab­ lished by the Federal Emergency able to create maps ranging from simple guides showing the locations of command posts, first-aid centers and food stations to others depicting fuf'c/1 (J J Management Agency, Mr. Sekins faced the long task of providing hazards like lingering fires and de­ rescue workers with detailed data bris hanging from buildings. about potential hazards at the site anc Debris on the ground is also care­ helping task force leaders coordinate fully tracked. “They’re playing a gi­ the relief effort. ant game of pick-up sticks, so we have As he had in other catastrophes. to plan out what thing gets moveo Mr. Sekins, who is based in Yorba next to avoid a secondary collapse,’’ Linda, Calif., would rely on Geograph­ Mr. Sekins said. ic Information System software, One of the most heavily used maps which can assemble and manipulate relies on a daily aerial shot of the site data that is identified by location and taken with a heat-sensing camera to display it, usually on a map. detect fire patterns in the rubble. As But in the first four days after the hot spots are identified, the G.I.S. attack, neither the G.I.S. equipment. including computers and color plot­ team overlays the image with a map ters for printing out maps, nor the showing the location of underground technicians needed to operate them tanks that held diesel fuel for genera- were available because the planes to transport them were not flying. A guide, regularly updated, to the dangers in the rubble.

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