FEMA puts wireless technology to use in Washington disaster

On Aug. 12, Washington, D.C., found itself awash with debris. After suffering three days of drenching rain, District of Columbia residents began the arduous task of cleaning up damage caused by mudslides and flooding. The city's sewage system also backed up, spilling waste into homes and streets. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams called on President Bush to declare the city a disaster area so city residents could apply for federal disaster assistance. Bush did so on Aug. 16. The Federal Emergency Management Agency immediately began making preparations to bring 100 workers into the area to coordinate the relief effort. It used to take FEMA four days to set up its main disaster field office. Workers from the local telephone company as well as FEMA technicians would wire an empty office space for separate voice and data networks by scurrying in the crawl spaces above workers' heads. "Now we set the system up in a day," said Thomas Mills, a network administrator working at FEMA's disaster field office in Southwest D.C. That's because FEMA is using wireless technology to get its disaster teams up and running faster than ever before. A typical disaster field office provides workspace for representatives from FEMA, the Small Business Administration, the Red Cross and local disaster officials. When disaster workers report for duty they are issued a laptop and a wireless phone. For the D.C. disaster, Mills helps operate a network that consists of a central server station housed in a shockproof case, 100 laptops and phones and 5 wireless transmitters. The transmitters broadcast voice and data to the office's wireless devices. The laptops are equipped with wireless modems and can be moved anywhere within the building and still be hooked up to the network. Richard Labbe, the network leader at the D.C. field office, said it used to take several trailer loads worth of equipment to set up a field office. Now, FEMA can bring everything down in a pickup truck. The entire system is loaded in a prepackaged kit waiting for each emergency, he said. While the field office coordinates the overall emergency response, outlying recovery centers help the disaster victims. These centers are also equipped with laptops, but they dial in to FEMA's National Emergency Management Information System (NEMIS), allowing workers to view information on the victims they are serving. FEMA inspectors are also benefiting from technology. Each is equipped with a handheld tablet computer that is loaded with a list of homes to inspect on a given day. At the end of the day, the inspector's work is uploaded to NEMIS. The system is quicker than the grueling paper-based process FEMA had in place years ago, said Steve Adukaitis, chief of staff for the D.C. disaster operation.