For example, the EP&R Chief Information Officer (CIO) is making progress 

with respect to IT planning, including the development of the agency's first IT 

strategic plan.  However, while the IT plan aligns with FEMA's outdated 

strategic plan, it does not reflect FEMA's integration into DHS and therefore 

may not support DHS' strategic goals.  Additionally, to better align EP&R's 

IT with the agency's strategic direction, integration with evolving DHS wide 

initiatives, such as 

eMerge

2

 and 

MAX

HR

, will prove challenging.  

Further, EP&R CIO support to IT users could be improved.  EP&R CIO staff, 

including the national IT helpdesk, provided significant service during the 

2004 hurricanes.  However, additional guidance and training for systems users 

is necessary to ensure that they have the knowledge and information needed to 

perform their jobs.  The EP&R CIO's office maintains up to date and often 

online systems procedure manuals and guidance, but FEMA field personnel 

are often unaware of these materials.  In addition, the IT manuals online 

describe the procedures necessary to complete actions in the systems, but they 

do not contain the business context for when or how the procedures should be 

used.  Although EP&R's custom, complex systems require significant 

amounts of front end instruction, users said that they received insufficient 

training. 

Currently, EP&R systems are not integrated and do not effectively support 

information exchange during response and recovery operations.  Also, EP&R 

has not fully updated its enterprise architecture to govern the IT environment.  

As a result, during significant disaster response and recovery operations, such 

as the 2004 hurricanes, IT systems cannot effectively handle increased 

workloads, are not adaptable to change, and lack needed real time reporting 

capabilities.  Such problems usually are due to FEMA's focus on short term 

IT fixes rather than long term solutions.  Inadequate requirements definition, 

alternatives analysis, and testing prior to systems deployment are 

characteristics of this reactive IT management approach.  

Although EP&R is working to introduce and web enable systems to resolve 

disparity between its current IT environment and DHS expectations, 

additional measures are needed.  EP&R would benefit from strategically 

managing IT by aligning its IT planning with DHS' direction as well as 

ensuring systems users receive more timely training and communication.  

Further, once broad based requirements are fully defined and documented, 

and alternatives are analyzed, EP&R will be in a better position to complete 

an enterprise architecture, and test and deploy the most appropriate 

technology needed to support its response and recovery mission.

Emergency Preparedness and Response Could Better Integrate Information Technology  

with Incident Response and Recovery 

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