Providing hope amid disaster

Discover how employees from our most recent acquisition use satellite imagery to aid in disaster relief, and support the global war on terror and homeland security.

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in August of 2005, Information Technology & Applications Corporation (ITAC) employees were called upon to support the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) in New Orleans.

"It was an unusual deployment for us," said Glenn Smith, a former vice president of ITAC, who joined our Electronic Warfare and Signals Intelligence (EW/SIGINT) business when Rockwell Collins acquired ITAC in August 2007. "In the past, we've gone out and worked with the military, but it was the first time we were deployed to a natural disaster on U.S. soil."

An engineering and products company that provides integrated intelligence and communications solutions that help support the global war on terror and homeland security, ITAC started deploying with the NGA during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Back then, ITAC built a deployable satellite suite that was so successful that the company was asked to support other national special security events, such as the anniversary of 9/11, Democratic and Republican national conventions, Super Bowls and the United Nations General Assembly openings.

"Because we had been supporting those types of events when Katrina hit, we were asked to deploy a system to the Gulf Coast after President Bush had surveyed the hurricane damage," said Smith, who is head of Intelligence Field Terminal Systems. "The fact the disaster occurred on U.S. soil was pretty emotional for people. I had no problem getting employees to volunteer to help."

ITAC's Buzz Lite system provided 95 percent of all commercial and national satellite imagery to aid in the Gulf Coast disaster relief. Since the infrastructure was disabled in New Orleans, ITAC's un-tethered deployable system - which also is used by warfighters in military operations - was needed in order to obtain near real-time imagery to respond to the crisis.

The imagery helped first responders and the U.S. Army National Guard determine important details such as where the damage was, what streets were flooded, where people needed to be rescued and how to safely get in and get out of those areas.

"After Katrina hit, we were looking at images with a bunch of flat patches on the ground, which turned out to be housing foundations," Smith recalled. "When you realized all those black spots used to be houses, and when you started counting, you knew how bad the devastation was.

"Once the levees broke in New Orleans and there was a big storm surge, you then saw the flooding, which didn't stop for a couple of days," he continued.

Kerry Pollock, a senior intelligence systems engineer at Rockwell Collins in Reston, Va., spent time in New Orleans, La., following Hurricane Katrina. Pollock joined our company via our acquisition of Information Technology and Applications Corporation (ITAC).
Photo courtesy of Kerry Pollock, Reston, Va.

Louisiana native Kerry Pollock, who was working out of ITAC's Reston office when Hurricane Katrina hit, was eager to help. He was familiar with the Buzz Lite system, and he knew the area of devastation.

"At that time, I was begging anybody and everybody who would listen to let me go to New Orleans," said Pollock. "Even though my family wasn't in the immediate path of the storm, I wanted to make sure everybody was well, and I wanted to help my home state."

About 10 days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Pollock drove into New Orleans with a government access card to relieve other ITAC personnel on site.

"My job was to bring the imagery to New Orleans," he said. "One of the great things about the Buzz Lite system is that as long as you can provide power - be that by generator or battery - you can provide imagery and intelligence to people in the remotest of locations."

From where Pollock was stationed on the Riverwalk near the Mississippi River in New Orleans, he could nearly see the Superdome, which was refuge of last resort for many people. He lived in a tent for five days until he was able to move into a Merchant Marine training ship, while first responders slept nearby in two huge cruise ships.

"You have to think in perspective what we were doing there," said Pollock. "We were trying very much to help and give hope to people during a time when there wasn't a lot of hope.

"It was so important that the first responders had the imagery to be able to do their jobs," he continued. "Even days into the process, they were still finding people, still looking in areas that had not yet been searched."

After the Hurricane Katrina crisis in the Gulf Coast, the U.S. Army National Guard asked ITAC to provide them with systems for all hurricane-prone states and territories. Once the contract for the first nine states/territories was filled, ITAC received a second contract to assist 16 additional states. Next year, they expect to work with the National Guard in all 50 states and four U.S. territories.

BRITE Intelligence Field Terminal (Pipeline), which is a derivative of the Buzz Lite system, is currently used by the National Guard in training exercises to prepare for any future natural or man-made disasters.

According to Pollock, who is now a senior intelligence systems engineer for Rockwell Collins, the biggest difference between the new system and the Buzz Lite system is it allows users to "chip" a high resolution image off of the larger image.

"The system we use now for the National Guard doesn't have to have the massive storage capabilities of the Buzz Lite system, which has a one-terabyte server," explained Pollock, who also trains the U.S. Army National Guard units on how to deploy, configure and use the system to bring in near real-time imagery. "It actually pulls smaller chips of imagery from the full-frame imagery, so it doesn't require you to wait for the full download of the one to three gigabyte image."

Less wait time means that warfighters or homeland security field operators can receive imagery faster, said Pollock.

"When intelligence data started being shared in the early- to mid-1990s, part of our expertise, or niche, was to build dissemination systems that can get to people anywhere in the world," said Smith. "It's all about getting the right information to the right place at the right time."

Editor's note: Along with the NGA and the U.S. Army National Guard, ITAC's customers also include Military Special Operations, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Air Intelligence Agency, and Army Space & SATCOM.