Subscribe to the Free Print Edition!
Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > 06/19/06 issue

DHS Special Report | Coast Guard Fine-Tunes Its Harbor Watch

Project Hawkeye combines data from sensors, cameras to detect suspicious activity

By Mary Mosquera, GCN Staff

Under the cloak of night, a vessel quietly floated in the channel waters at the entrance to the busy cargo, cruise and petroleum seaport of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

As the vessel ran aground on a jetty, Coast Guard command center staff, who had been tracking the vessel’s erratic movements on their monitors, alerted senior officials who had gone home for the night. The sector commander, logged into a secure Web site from home, tracked the activity as Coast Guard forces went out to investigate.

As it turned out, the vessel was not a stealthy security risk but a luxury yacht that had lost power and was drifting, with no one at the helm.

Still, the grounded yacht posed a risk of spilling hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel into the water in an environmentally sensitive area.

And the incident also served as an example of how the Coast Guard has expanded its reach in monitoring the nation’s coastlines.

Project Hawkeye, piloted at Port Everglades, the Port of Miami and several others, gives the Coast Guard the ability—via a system of sensors and cameras—to identify and track vessels in harbor and coastal waters.

A force multiplier
In a natural or homeland security emergency, what’s happening at the port and its environs will become part of the Homeland Security Department’s nationwide common operating picture.

“Project Hawkeye is a force multiplier for the Coast Guard,” said Dana Goward, director of the Coast Guard’s Maritime Domain Awareness Program Integration in Washington, D.C.

From its command center at the Port of Miami, the Coast Guard monitors commercial vessels there and in nearby ports and ocean channels, as well as the activities of small recreational vessels that act suspiciously. Hawkeye’s sensors and long-range cameras with night-vision and infrared capabilities act as eyes on the coast and are viewed on displays at its command center, much like a security guard watches over facilities on closed circuit.

The Port of Miami provides an operating test bed, with 10,000 vessels arriving annually. It and nearby Port Everglades also are the top two cruise ship ports, Goward said.

More news on related topics: Homeland Security, Management, IT Management



GCN Popup