“As I was flying in, I was sitting next to a security guy hired to provide security for the power company employees and I could see the burn areas on the east side of the island,” said Aaron Showker, senior lead analyst, Expeditionary Operations, or IX. “It started getting real.”

Five days after the first fire was reported on Maui, the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested NGA’s assistance. 

• August 8: Just after midnight, the first blazes were reported
• August 13: FEMA requested NGA’s support for the Maui wildfire recovery. NGA deployed two analysts
• August 25: NGA analysts returned home from Maui
• August 29: NGA analysts deployed to Florida to support recovery with Hurricane Idalia

For 14 days, two analysts from IX provided on-the-ground support to FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Teams and FEMA liaison officers, in parallel with Maui Fire and Police departments search and rescue efforts following the wildfires in Lahaina. 

More than 6,000 residents were displaced from Maui, and more than 15,000 tourists were in harm’s way on the island. 

“This was something I’ve never seen in my life, and I’ve been to war zones,” said Showker. 

Once the analysts landed, they grabbed all their bags and headed to the Grand Wailea – Waldorf Astoria Hotel, 40 minutes south of Lahaina, Hawaii and the location of the incident support team. 

For 12-18 hours a day, the team supported relief efforts, creating maps and analyzing data to help the search and rescue teams. 

Every day, beginning at 6 a.m., NGA analysts collected all the data from the day before, and the search and rescue teams were notified by their division supervisors where they were headed that day to search. NGA’s deployers would also make their way to the search site for the day with maps they hung on makeshift plywood boards for the rescuers to view. Then, by 10 a.m., they made their way back to the hotel and watched via FEMA’s Search and Rescue Common Operating Picture, or SARCOP, what teams were finding and search progress. 

“The search and rescue teams were producing data throughout the day, which was sent back to us to analyze and prepare for the daily 3 p.m. local time tactics meeting,” said Showker. After sundown, the searching stopped, all the data was collected and new maps were created for the following day. 

Back “home” in Springfield, Virginia, Source personnel provided crowd-sourced data to the deployers. Then, closer to the disaster, at NGA USINDOPACOM, in Oahu, Hawaii members supported requests from outside of FEMA. 

“Once the analysts arrived on Maui, [the NGA USINDOPACOM Regional Branch, or AOOR] communicated with them daily through Jabber and email to ensure they knew they had additional local support if needed,” said David Kalwick, branch chief NGA USINDOPACOM Humanitarian Assistance / Disaster Relief team. “It was decided that AOOAR would handle the requests that came in from outside of FEMA’s IST.”

Using two HADR laptops, external storage and a STARLINK commercial SATCOM, the team provided FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue teams and the local fire and police department, via FEMA liaison officers, with maps and imagery to help teams understand the search areas and where there may be missing persons.

One of the tools used to support search and rescue was the NSG Open Mapping Environment, or NOME. NOME is a crowd-sourcing tool that allows members of the GEOINT community to add, edit and find foundation content. 

The unclassified, crowd-sourced data assisted deployed IX analysts in identifying buildings that were destroyed in the wildfires.   

“The information from NOME is put in to [commercial software], allowing us to quickly pull the heights of the buildings and know exactly what was there,” said Showker. If a building has collapsed, you need to know the height of the building, to know how deep you need to go or the type of equipment you need to use to get through the material. NOME helps create the delayering process. This information then goes into ARCGIS to help produce the maps that are hung up near the search and rescue area for the day.

Towards the end of the analysts’ time on Maui, their focus shifted to Front Street, the main street closest to the coastline, in Lahaina. This was the last area to burn. It was also where many people sought refuge and most of the buildings collapsed. This town was completely decimated and carried the most history.  

In this area specifically, the delayering was very methodical, as search and rescuers needed to abide by Hawaiian culture, said Showker.

“Many lives were lost, along with historic buildings and artifacts that chronicled the history of Hawaii moving toward a unified nation and then ultimately statehood,” said Kalwick.

NGA helped in relief efforts then following the wildfires, quickly switched gears to support Florida with relief efforts following Hurricane Idalia. 

“I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to go over there,” said Showker. “It was truly a team effort from all of NGA and the federal government to help Hawaiian people bring closure to a devastating crisis.”