U.S. NAVY SALVAGE REPORT DEEPWATER HORIZON ... - ESSM

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response
Chapter 2 -
Command and Organization
The Deepwater Horizon incident was federalized on 23 April 2010 when the National Response
Team stood up the Unified Area Command (UAC) in Roberts, LA. As the incident and scope of
response escalated and the Unified Command expanded, Incident Commands Posts (ICP) were
established in Houma, LA, Mobile, AL, Galveston, TX, St. Petersburg, FL and a “source control”
ICP in Houston, TX.
On April 29th, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary designated the incident a Spill
of National Significance (SONS) which brought additional federal resources to bear in response
to the incident. The SONS designation enabled appointment of a National Incident Commander
(NIC), Admiral Thad Allen, to coordinate response at the national level and the Incident
Command System (ICS) as the crisis management tool. Incidentally, this was the first named
SONS incident since the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 created the response system. Working within
the ICS system, SUPSALV responded to a established chain of command. The overall
organization is depicted in Figure 2-1 and the Navy response organizational is shown in Figure
2-2.
Figure 2 1. Deepwater Horizon ICS Organization
2-1