FEMA updates IT systems to better respond to disasters
By Denise Pappalardo, NetworkWorld.com, 02/28/06
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has seen a fair amount of press attention in the past year, with 45 presidential-declared
disasters stemming from hurricanes, floods and wildfires. The agency is undergoing much change in an effort to better address
these and manmade disasters such as terrorist attacks, says Barry West, the CIO at FEMA who spoke Tuesday at a breakfast hosted
by ExecutiveBiz, a group that promotes networking among business executives in the Washington, D.C. area.
West says Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff calls this the “retooling” of FEMA.
The changes include updating FEMA’s claim-processing procedures from call center support to migrating to a Web services platform.
FEMA is beefing up its claim processing systems that was severely taxed during and after Hurricane Katrina. The system is called NEMIS, the National Emergency Management Information System, which was developed in 1997 using an Oracle
client server system. “It was designed to handle 20,000 to 25,000 applications a day,” West says. “In one day it handled 110,000
applications,” last year.
“Last year 45% of claims came through the Web,” West says. In 2004, only 10% came to FEMA via its Web site.
This has prompted the agency to update the system to using Web services and Linux servers. “We’re moving old client server
systems out and putting Web services in and using Oracle 10G,” West says.
While 45% of applications were received via the Web in 2005, 65% were still handled through one of FEMA’s call centers.
There are four call centers in Hyattsville, Md., Winchester, Va., Denton, Texas and Puerto Rico. In order to deal with the
deluge of calls last year, FEMA tapped other call centers, like the center at the Internal Revenue Service, that could handle
the overflow of calls, West says.
FEMA is re-evaluating how it deals with call overflow. Instead of having another agency like the IRS waiting to see how it
can help, West says FEMA is looking at how it can actively contract out call center support to large insurance companies or
to large financial institutions such as the Bank of America.
The disaster recovery and relief agency is also looking at implementing a system that would allow real-time tracking of assets,
West says. “Things like ice and tarps,” he says. “It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is.”
Today FEMA is using Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology to track these assets, but West says the system needs upgrading.
He hopes to move to an RFID system in the near future, but timing isn’t clear as hurricane season begins June 1.
