Safe harbor? DHS will miss deadline to set up port security hubs.

Project SeaHawk funded the deployment of radiological sensors that are affixed to small boats and vehicles. Gutierrez was reluctant to discuss details on the system, but said the sensors can be placed next to ships or containers to pick up signs of radiation. "They are amazingly sensitive," he said. The vehicles carrying these sensors have cameras that can send back streaming video to SeaHawk terminals.

Like most modern operation centers, all these cameras, sensors and tracking systems are displayed on a series of monitors spread along a wall.

Kelly Shackelford, director of the project's task force, said "the ability of all those agencies to come together to use their resources is what we're all about. It really does allow us to make better decisions on how to use the resources."

Much of this information technology infrastructure can be exported to other startup operational centers, Gutierrez said. Sixty-seven percent of SeaHawk's budget during the past five years has gone towards developing the center's technological backbone.

"We were able to do the 85 percent solution for them to be able to pick it up and run with it," he said. The information portal software has already been adopted by the Coast Guard's captains of the ports.

Each port is different, he pointed out, which requires individual adjustments. A communications system that works in Charleston may not work in New Orleans, where the Mississippi River makes the geography, and the jurisdictions dramatically different from Charleston. Ports in Florida may have more concerns with drugs and illegal immigration.

SeaHawk officials declined to provide details on counterterrorism operations because the incidents are classified. But one false alarm did demonstrate how the center works.

A gate guard one day noticed a strange contraption hanging off the end of a container leaving the port by truck. He thought, "Oh my God, what is this on the back of this container? It's got to be the timing device for a nuclear weapon," Gutierrez said.

Immediately, SeaHawk declared a level two maritime security alert, which shut down the port. Explosive ordnance disposal teams arrived on the scene within minutes.

They determined that the device was a weather balloon instrument that had fallen on a ship somewhere out at sea and wrapped itself around the container. The port reopened 90 minutes after the guard radioed in the report.

That short recovery time is critical because every hour a port is closed damages the local economy, Gutierrez said. South Carolina ports move $53 billion worth of cargo per year.

Chris Berardini, chief of staff for Rep. Henry Brown, R-S.C., said SeaHawk should be viewed as the flagship for the next generation of interagency port security operation centers. But he acknowledged that future centers may not be as robust as SeaHawk. There is a chance, however, that Seahawk's capabilities will be reduced after it transitions to DHS control in October 2009.

"We would like it to be scaled down as little as possible," he said.

A funding crunch and the lack of physical infrastructure to host operations centers at some ports could lead to the creation of "virtual" command centers, rather than brick-and-mortar hubs, said White.

A broader question is whether the SeaHawk model could be adopted nationwide. That seems doubtful. Not all ports have Charleston's emphasis on container security, White said. He repeated the Coast Guard maxim that "if you've seen one port, you've seen one port."

SeaHawk is a "good pilot project, but it is very Charleston-centric right now," he said.

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