Emergency network from NOAA in the works

The coincidence is staggering — a right whale and dolphins wash up on Sullivan's Island, a fish kill surfaces in Charleston Harbor, crows start to drop at the old Navy base.

It could be an environmental catastrophe. It could be bioterrorism. People could be next.

Normally, different agencies would be called to each incident, one not always knowing what the other is doing. Minutes, if not hours, could be lost responding. However, very soon a computer program might pick up the various reports, connect the dots and issue alerts in real time to emergency managers.

An Environmental Surveillance Network, one of the first of its kind, is being developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research center at Fort Johnson. It could be expanded into a national network, becoming a vital component of homeland security.

The pilot program isn't funded. It's being developed without new money, by staff scratching out time from other duties, using existing data bases and the Internet. Its first phase is expected to be up and running in the next few months, officials said.

"We're just doing it because it's the right thing to do. I know that sounds Mom and apple pie, but it's really true," said oceanographer Scott Cross, who's handling the Web development.

The importance of a network was demonstrated as recently as the 2005 Graniteville train derailment that caused a chlorine gas leak, killing nine people and injuring 250. State Department of Health and Environmental Control investigators traced the plume of chlorine vapor by plotting the locations of dead animals.

"For some things, animals will start to be affected by a biological event before humans are, before we even know what's going on," said Joselyn Burdine, coordinator for the Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University of South Carolina.

The idea for the network came from a series of workshops held by the center that ran mock scenario exercises with representatives from federal and state agencies who would respond to threats such as bio-terrorism or a chemical spill.

"It became clear that, while everyone's response was good, they were parallel playing. The left hand doesn't always know what the right hand is doing," said Jane Richter, center director. That's when the lightbulb went on for Geoffrey Scott.

"We had all this information out there. How valuable would it be to bring it all together?" said Scott, the NOAA center director.

The Web program will take feeds from agencies such as DHEC, the state Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Geological Survey and the state veterinarian's office and make the information available to everyone involved, including S.C. Emergency Management and Project SeaHawk, a federally funded security task force that coordinates federal, state and local law enforcement at the Port of Charleston.

It works with maps, able to show whether incidents in different places and times correlate. It issues alerts when they seem to.

"Bringing the professionals together to make a collective judgment" on potential crises and the response is the goal, Scott said. "It helps you direct assets to the right place."

"It gets everybody out of their silos," Richter said. "Even if they only have a hunch, they're not afraid to pick up the phone."