Few jobs are more results-defined than search and rescue, and few present the same harsh environmental challenges. When a call comes in, time is the most precious commodity of all. The quest to save time is born from life-and-death situations, and that quest is what drove the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard's Station Oregon Inlet to develop and implement an award-winning solution using GPS capabilities, sophisticated mapping software and a rugged Pocket PC.
Station Oregon Inlet (SOI) is located near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. The small-boat rescue station covers the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, several sounds, and the general coastline extending up to the Virginia-North Carolina border. Their territory extends from shore to 50 miles out to sea. The SOI personnel also perform marine law enforcement duties, but their most vital assignment is rescues.
Time is precious; conditions poor
As you would imagine, searches rarely occur in optimal conditions. Between the typically bad weather and the emergency nature of the calls that come in, the search-and-rescue teams have to perform under challenging conditions and extreme time pressure. Until recently, the typical response would proceed like this:
- A call would come in with the last known position of a boat.
- That information would be processed in the Coast Guard's computer system, producing a search pattern based on known position, weather conditions, currents, etc.
- Since the computer is located at a remote station, the search pattern information was transmitted to SOI.
- SOI in turn relayed the information to the outbound rescue boat.
