[Editor's Note: Cori Pope was contracted to write this article by Tripod Data Systems, who manufacture the rugged Pocket PC mentioned in this article.]
Most people will never receive an urgent call from the United States Marine Corps, let alone one asking for help rebuilding a significant portion of the country following one the greatest natural disasters ever to strike the United States. Michael Gray, however, is not like most people. He received one of many such calls recently in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The Global Relief Technologies operation center. Information is sent in from the field, and can quickly be compiled and analyzed here.
Gray is president and chief executive officer of Global Relief Technologies (GRT), a company that provides technologies for simplifying the collection and communication of vital information between field areas (often disaster zones) and headquarters.
While Gray was watching television coverage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and contemplating how GRT could provide the most benefit for relief efforts, a call came in from the Marines. The matter was urgent: could he send someone to equip a United States Marine Corps unit deployed to the Gulf Coast with GRT technology within the next 24 hours?
Extensive wind and water damage along the Gulf Coast
The next day, Gray sent Ken LeMoult, director of the GRT Virtual Network Operations Center (and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves), to Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, equipped with nine Tripod Data Systems (TDS) Recon (http://www.tdsway.com) rugged Pocket PCs. Each unit was loaded with customized Rapid Data Management Software (RDMS) developed by GRT for the quick collection of critical engineering and logistics data in the hurricane-stricken region.
GRT also sprang into action by creating a customized Virtual Network Operations Center (VNOC), a centralized, highly secure Web-based relational database management system, where information gathered in the field would be immediately sent for analysis and review.
Aboard the USS Whidbey bound for New Orleans. Marine engineers were trained to use the GRT technology while on the ship.
Less than 24 hours after receiving the initial call, LeMoult met the Navy ship USS Whidbey Island at Camp Lejeune and deployed aboard with the Marines. While en route from North Carolina to the Gulf Coast, LeMoult provided hands-on training to the Marine engineers who would be conducting engineering reconnaissance and reporting on logistics operations once in the field using the rugged devices.
"We've worked with the Marines on multiple occasions in the past, so they're familiar with our technology and its capabilities, but the individuals who were recording Hurricane Katrina data had not used the equipment previously," said Gray. "Because our technology is used entirely in the field, often in disaster situations, it is designed to be easy to learn and quick to deploy."
Traditionally, in disconnected environments the military has used pencils, paper and radios to communicate information about the status of roads, bridges, power lines and other critical data. The result: reams of data flowing in from several different locations, which made it difficult to analyze, share and utilize that information on anything approaching a real-time basis.
The TDS Recon rugged Pocket PC in use in the field
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