FEMA's seal
Displaying static information is a thing of the past and is not useful in a national emergency such as 9/11 or Katrina.
FEMA’s Static Information Delivery Online Not Enough
By Olayinka Arowolo MBA
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a multi layered agency that is supposed to respond to catastrophic disasters that pose a significant threat to human life. The FEMA website plays an important intermediary role between the agency and the public. As with most federal agencies, the level of bureaucratic red tape involved in general administration and operations is considerable and extensive. The red tape contributes to the considerable time it takes to get needed technologies to market. In terms of the FEMA website, red tape also adds to the lack of information available to the public online. Given the complicated nature of government operations as a whole, the public lacks transparency and cohesiveness in terms of government initiatives. Part of the solution to that problem could be a complete overhaul of the FEMA website. FEMA needs a “dynamic action” website accessible to the public. The site should give the public the transparency it needs into what FEMA is doing about an ongoing emergency and should also allow the public to engage the agency online.
Websites are becoming more and more dynamic and interactive in terms of the level of functionality. Displaying static information is a thing of the past and is not useful in a national emergency such as 9/11 or Katrina. The current FEMA website has a functional purpose equivalent to that of a news site like CNN.com or FOXNEWs.com. The website does have some pluses in that it correctly functions as a central reporting hub for flaring problems in an ongoing disaster however it does not reflect the initiatives taken in response. The sites capabilities and offerings should extend beyond the delivery of static information and should be more functional in terms of capabilities.
Smart message boards for missing people are the most obvious applications that need to be integrated into the site. Post 9/11 and Katrina, people were looking for lost and displaced relatives, FEMA should play a more active role online by enabling people to upload photos of lost folks. 24 hours photo streams of lost or displaced people should be ongoing. The photos should also be clickable and should lead to more information when selected. The site should contain an ongoing Blog that FEMA can sieve through to obtain vital information on problems that may not be on the immediate radar. Blogs are a useful way of evaluating public sentiment and finding out what’s going on.
The site should deliver news and relevant information but it should also be functional in terms of allowing the public to communicate immediate crisis through interactive applications. All projects in the name of emergency management should be online and their requirements should be an ongoing open discussion. As conditions on ground zero change the website should reflect all efforts and initiatives in response to the changes. FEMA’s website is too static in nature and is not functionally equipped to act as an alternate resource in the face of a disaster. Currently it offers static information that can be found on other sites, news delivery should not be a primary functionality. The site should be more of a dynamic, data resource hub, loaded with applications that tend to the needs of the public in an emergency.
Olayinka Arowolo is president of Atlanta-based Aroviz Online and Associates, LLC. Aroviz is a provider of video mail and audition automation software platforms.
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