specify what assistance they could expect from FEMA and when it might be 

available.  Confused, the victims called National Processing Service Center 

representatives for clarification.  This created additional burdens as the Center 

was already overloaded with increased workloads, high call volumes, and 

slow and crashing systems. 

Reporting Challenges 

Response and recovery program personnel said that some FEMA systems did 

not provide useful reports regarding ongoing operations.  They said that the 

standard reports that NEMIS and IFMIS generated were long and did not 

contain specific information, in the right format, to meet their needs.  For 

example, when a grant report is requested from IFMIS, the product includes 

all grants instead of identifying specific grant information.  Because the 

reports provided were not useful, FEMA regional offices copied data from the 

systems and loaded it into spreadsheets and databases so that they could create 

their own reports.  The spreadsheets and databases were not standardized 

across all regional offices, were not connected with the response and recovery 

systems, and were not centrally backed up.  As a result, regional offices did 

not maintain consistent information that could be rolled up to the national 

level. 

In addition, requested reports were not timely.  At one point in the Florida 

operations, Individual Assistance Program personnel received a report six 

days after it had been requested.  As a result, 200 300 disaster assistance 

employees were hindered in their efforts to assist more than 200,000 disaster 

victims who had requested temporary housing assistance.  Without the reports 

to provide the names and contact information of eligible victims, FEMA was 

delayed in locating victims to deliver assistance.  Other system users said that 

IFMIS reports take so long to run that they regularly leave the system on over 

night to produce them.  Alternatively, users copy system information, such as 

financial transaction data, mission assignments, vendor information, and 

action tracking request forms, onto spreadsheets or databases to access and 

manipulate the needed data more easily. 

Real Time Resource Tracking Issues 

During the 2004 hurricanes, FEMA systems did not provide staff with real 

time capabilities for tracking deployments of personnel, equipment, and 

supplies.  For example, ADD did not allow FEMA regional staff

to keep track 

of emergency response personnel sent out to provide assistance at disaster 

locations.  Although ADD contained much of the personnel deployment 

Emergency Preparedness and Response Could Better Integrate Information Technology  

with Incident Response and Recovery 

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