18 Proceedings Summer 2025 crucial for captains of the port (COTP), who have vast federal and statutory responsibilities, but also for federal, state, and local port and industry partners, as well as the public that uses the MTS. Projected growth in trade also increases the demand on the MTS and must be safely handled and balanced with environmental values in order to ensure that freight and people move efficiently to, from, and on our waterfronts. In the mid-2000s, following Hurricane Katrina’s horrific impact on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, the commanders of Coast Guard Atlantic Area and the Coast Guard Heartland District chartered the Maritime Recovery and Restoration Task Forces. In addition to the extensive recommendations implemented based on the task forces’ findings, another key advancement followed. The Coast Guard transitioned from a paper-based system of tracking the operational status and impacts to the Marine Transportation System to the Common Assessment and Reporting Tool (CART) in the early 2000s. The web-based application is used to document and report the status of the MTS after a significant dis- ruption—human-made or natural. It provides a reposi- tory for MTS recovery information that can assist Marine Transportation System Recovery Units (MTSRU) in mak- ing recommendations to the COTP, Incident or Unified Command. CART has proven its worth during incidents such as Hurricane Sandy, the sinking of the M/V Golden Ray, and the 2024 collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. It also provided crucial information after hurricanes that have had significant impacts to our COPT zones. The CART executive summary (MTS-209), a report developed for each incident, is only available to Coast Guard personnel and stakeholders—local, federal, and state personnel—in the captain of the port zone affected by a marine casualty or pollution incident. The Coast Guard has experimented with several geographic infor- mation systems (GIS) applications. Unfortunately, these have had varying degrees of success, and they have not been able to be shared with port partners, nor have they been able to use port partner systems to get the most accurate and up-to-date information. As ports have migrated into highly interdependent ecosystems, and with the near-instantaneous ability to share data in our tech-savvy society, this has created the need to transition our extensive volume of data. We must compress it into digestible segments of knowledge for the MTSRU, COTP, and a variety of partners, to paint as comprehensive a picture as possible. Reason for Change In just 48 hours, Hurricane Sandy devastated coastal neighborhoods, causing numerous fatalities, damaging or destroying thousands of homes, and leaving an esti- mated $19 billion in damages. Hurricane Harvey sub- merged the Texas and Louisiana coasts with more than 50 inches of rain, resulting in nearly $100 billion in dam- ages. These immediate impacts underscore the growing threat rising weather extremes pose like New York and Houston, and especially to our most vulnerable compo- nents and residents. The roll-on/roll-off vessel Golden Ray lies on its port side after capsizing inside the St. Simons Sound near Brunswick, Georgia, in September 2019. A unified command, which included the Coast Guard, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and the Gallagher Marine Systems, was formed to ensure the safety of the public and responders and to facilitate the vessel’s eventual salvage and safe removal. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Paige Hause Information Available in CART The Common Assessment and Reporting Tool, or CART, is a repository of information that can assist Maritime Transpor- tation System Recovery Units in making recommendations for a recovery plan. It provides: • Timely and accurate information on pre-incident essential elements of information (EEIs) in a unit’s area of responsibility • A comparison of baseline EEI data to post-incident data during incident management to characterize the extent of the impact on the MTS • MTS executive summary reports to facilitate decision-making and information-sharing with a wide range of MTS stakeholders.2
