dramatic increases in workload.  Even the engineers responsible for designing 

and developing NEMIS questioned whether the system could consistently 

manage workloads resulting from multiple, concurrent disasters.  Although 

the Florida hurricanes entailed one of the largest response and recovery efforts 

in FEMA's history, workload volumes from multiple, large disasters in the 

future could far exceed the systems processing levels required to manage the 

2004 incidents.   

Systems Are Old and Not Adaptable to Change 

FEMA's response and recovery applications are custom designed, complex, 

outdated, and difficult to adapt to changing user needs.  As a result, during 

disaster response and recovery operations, FEMA has had to adjust its 

processes to overcome the systems limitations.  For example, ADD was 

designed in such a manner that it cannot be easily updated.  Currently, it is 

difficult to enter into ADD the financial information necessary to issue credit 

cards, commonly known as  supercards,  for emergency response personnel.  

As a result, FEMA officials created separate, stand alone databases to track 

the financial information rather than submit their ADD change requirements 

to the CIO's office for implementation. 

Further, the mail processing center at the National Processing Service Center 

in Hyattsville, Maryland, was unable to handle the surge in letter production 

required during the Florida hurricanes.  FEMA employees select and print 

batches of letters to the victims, categorized by different disaster situations.  

However, this process became difficult during the 2004 hurricanes because of 

the increased volume of letters that had to be prepared.  No provision had 

been made for surge printing capability. 

CIO officials worked to address the letter generation problem.  After 7 to 10 

days of effort, they succeeded in improving the system code, helping to reduce 

the print backlog.  However, a contractor later examined the system code and 

found it to be extremely complex, requiring 20 pages of code to print what 

newer, more efficient code can do in one line.  The contractor recommended 

rewriting the code; the NEMIS development team currently is investigating 

ways to address this issue. 

In addition to revising the system code to address the print backlog, FEMA 

changed the business process, instituting a workaround that involved creating 

one standard letter to send to all disaster victims.  The standard letter helped 

speed up the victim notification process.  However, the letter was too generic, 

did not provide victims the information they needed, and did not clearly 

Emergency Preparedness and Response Could Better Integrate Information Technology  

with Incident Response and Recovery 

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