Stories From The Port’s Recovery: The NOAA Navigation Response Team

In the wake of the Key Bridge Disaster and the closing of the maritime Port of Baltimore, several NOAA programs deployed to Baltimore. These teams helped establish auxiliary navigation channels and restore limited vessel traffic along the Patapsco River. The auxiliary channels would serve as alternate routes for shallow-draft vessels to pass around the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

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From left to right, Michael Bloom (Physical Science Technician, Navigation Response Team – New London), LT Patrick Debroisse (Ops Officer, NOAA Ship Ferdinand R. Hassler), Rob Mowery (Physical Science Technician, R/V Bay Hydro II), LTJG Carly Robbins (OIC, R/V Bay Hydro II), LTJG Mark Meadows (OIC, Navigation Response Team – New London). Not pictured, but also on scene for the response: LCDR (ret) Ryan Wartick (NOAA Mid-Atlantic Navigation Manager) (Credit: RDML Benjamin K. Evans/NOAA)

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NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey deployed six personnel to the scene. They included the mid-Atlantic navigation manager and a combined team from the NOAA navigation response team–New London, NOAA R/V Bay Hydrographer II, and NOAA Ship Ferdinand R. Hassler. On March 31, the team completed high-priority survey operations on the channel’s north side using multibeam and side-scanning sonar. Those surveying tasks allowed the team to determine water depths, detect obstructions along the river’s bottom, and establish available widths between the remaining bridge abutments. These data were paired with additional vessel based LIDAR data to provide the distance between the water and non-collapsed sections of the bridge.

RV Bay Hydro II (S5401), sometimes rendered as R/V Bay Hydro II, is an American oceanographic research vessel in non-commissioned service in the fleet of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) since 2009. She is registered as NOAA S5401. (Courtesy of NOAA)

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Once all obstructions have been cleared from the channel, the Office of Coast Survey’s Hydrographic Surveys Division will quickly review and qualify the final surveys of each channel and upload them into the National Bathymetric Source program for rapid update of the electronic navigational charts.

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An NOAA graphic showing an obstruction found in the Fort Carroll Alternate Channel, developed with a multibeam echosounder. (Courtesy of NOAA)