BETHESDA, Md.- The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is supporting the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Southern Command and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with analysis, unclassified commercial satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence products of the Haitian areas devastated by the recent earthquake.
Commercial imagery providers DigitalGlobe and GeoEye have provided commercial satellite imagery of post-earthquake Haiti to NGA.
"We're looking at infrastructure and force protection and producing products for the Command" said Tom Mann, Director, NGA Support Team to USSOUTHCOM. "We are prepared to send analysts into the region to provide support on-site."
NGA will also be providing public access to some of its geospatial intelligence products (e.g. imagery and maps) as they become available via NGA's crisis response portal, NGA-Earth, www.nga-earth.org (satellite imagery and map viewer).
USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance is leading U.S. disaster relief efforts, and USSOUTHCOM will serve a supporting role to its efforts.
The NGA-Earth site is updated as new geospatial intelligence products are made available. In addition to the information hosted at this location, the site provides links to other federal agency sites and is an access point to leverage other NGA geospatial expertise and products.
Originally established in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the NGA-Earth site uses the Internet to provide the public a single, easy-to-use entry point for locating timely, relevant, unclassified geospatial information in the event of a natural disaster or crisis. The site is also a means to communicate critical information to first responders, as well as to allow the public the ability to broadly assess property damage without having to physically return.
In addition to the images, NGA will also be providing geospatial intelligence products to supported agencies. The products will include graphics of major infrastructure such as the locations of airports, hospitals, police and fire stations, emergency operations centers, hazardous material locations, roads and schools. The products will also include damage assessments. These types of products greatly assist first responders and those coordinating and planning relief efforts. These graphics provide a common operating picture that helps enable local, state and federal government elements to work effectively together since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
NGA is a DoD combat support agency and a member of the national Intelligence Community. The agency's mission is to provide geospatial intelligence, which is the exploitation of satellite or airborne images, fused with other intelligence and geospatial information like mapping, charting and geodesy, to help warfighters and national decision makers visualize what they need to know. NGA is the nation's eyes.
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Washingtonian magazine selected NGA as one of its "great places to work" in November 2009, where the "pay, mission, culture, flexibility and the benefits were the best part of working at their agency." NGA also has major facilities in the Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia and St. Louis, Mo., areas with NGA support teams worldwide. Visit our Web site at www.nga.mil.
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