The document I want to share with you is a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report Maritime Security: Coast Guard Efforts to Address Port Recovery and Salvage Response While there is some information there on the specific topic of recovery and salvage response the essence of the 17 page document is that it provides a description of the planning mechanisms that the Coast Guard uses to accomplish its planning in the various port areas. In this case they concentrated on the Group 1 size ports (think bigger) which is where they conducted their interviews and investigations.
For emergency managers you need to become familiar with the terminology and planning mechanisms. This includes understanding terms like, Marine Transportation System (MTS), Area Maritime Security (AMS) , Transportation Security Incident (TSI), Area Maritime Steering Committee (AMSC) and finally the Marine Transportation System Recovery Unit (MTSRU). I know, another new list of acronyms to learn!
My personal experience is that the maritime planning (let's leave the term security out of it) has not been well integrated with local emergency management efforts. The tendency is always for us to stay within our disciplines and so much of maritime planning is done with maritime entities, both public and private (that is a nice win that the private sector is very much at the table in the maritime world).
I encourage you to read the report as a familiarization for how planning for maritime disasters occurs and then as appropriate, and resources allow, plug yourself into those planning efforts at some point in the planning process. Integrating our efforts is key and emergency managers are integrators!
