Two and a half years after Hurricane Katrina revealed the weaknesses in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s performance, the agency is quietly embarking on its most ambitious overhaul of information technology software.

FEMA’s enterprise IT project is a multiyear program expected to cost at least $1 billion, according to Input Inc., a market research firm in Reston, Va. Several other industry and government sources have confirmed that estimate.

The Enterprise Application Development Integration and Sustainment (EADIS) program will create an integrated computer environment for operating FEMA’s many programs, including disaster assistance, preparedness grants distribution and individual assistance. It will develop a common enterprise architecture and software for FEMA’s major IT systems.

However, some insiders question the value of launching such a far-reaching project in the final year of a presidential administration and after the recent resignation of Anthony Cira, FEMA’s chief information officer. The new program is proceeding without much fanfare, and it is too early to know whether this understated approach will be effective in moving it to completion.

“FEMA does not have the luxury of not updating,” said George Foresman, former undersecretary of preparedness at the Homeland Security Department.

Observers question how effectively FEMA is consulting with other stakeholders and how a new IT architecture will affect FEMA’s role in future disaster response.

But there is overall support in the field for FEMA’s efforts to improve its IT systems and a belief that such work is long overdue. FEMA has been operating on aging systems for many years. Those shortcomings contributed to failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina, according to an April 2006 report by DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner.

“FEMA was in need of an upgrade in 2003 when it joined DHS,” and the need has grown since then, said Kenneth Burris, FEMA’s former chief operating officer, who retired in 2006. He became COO at the Washington-based consulting firm James Lee Witt Associates last year.

In the past five years, demand for a modern IT infrastructure at FEMA has increased. More people depend on the agency since Katrina, despite its well-publicized stumbles. “There is a critical need for FEMA to meet expectations,” Burris said.

The EADIS contract is to be awarded under the Enterprise Applications Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions procurement vehicle. Bids from contractors were due Jan. 18. DHS is expected to narrow the competition to two bidders shortly.

HEAVY BIDDERS
According to industry insiders, General Dynamics Corp., IBM Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Science Applications International Corp. have submitted bids, but that information could not be fully confirmed.

Cira, who was spearheading EADIS, announced his resignation Jan. 28. He declined to comment, citing confidentiality rules. “We are wondering whether someone else at FEMA will became the champion for this project or whether the FEMA old guard will take over,” one contractor said.

But others say EADIS is far enough along to survive without Cira’s involvement. “At this stage of procurement, it is likely to have momentum behind it,” said Jeremy Potter, senior homeland security analyst at Input.

FEMA has been operating on piecemeal, overstretched IT systems for many years. Despite several partial overhauls, the current systems are not integrated and do not always work well together, Burris and others say. For example, FEMA’s system for intake of disaster assistance applications was designed to handle a maximum of about 50,000 applications per day, Burris said. After Katrina, millions of people filed applications in a short time. Upgrading that system is likely to cost $175 million, Burris said, based on estimates developed when he was at FEMA in 2006.

“Definitely, there is a need for a significant repair to that system,” he said.

Similarly, FEMA’s existing financial management IT systems are not fully integrated with its systems for tracking purchase orders and procurements, Burris said. Those problems have been addressed in an ad hoc fashion for years, but there needs to be an enterprise IT system to integrate them to be fully effective, he added.

Also, the National Emergency Management Information System is expected to be updated and folded into the enterprise IT project, according to industry sources. The NEMIS database is a core program for FEMA response and recovery.

FEMA intended to tackle some of the IT integration issues when it became part of DHS. But it was stymied in part by requests from the new organization to hold off on major IT system updating until DHS could overhaul its central IT system and put together a new enterprise architecture, Burris said. But DHS appears to have changed its strategy in the past year and is now encouraging agency IT enterprise architecture improvements, including FEMA’s EADIS program, to move forward, he added.

But Foresman said FEMA’s own maturation since Katrina has been equally important in spurring the IT overhaul. In addition, the agency has been able to get a clearer vision for its enterprise architecture needs through exposure to other DHS agencies and headquarters that are also installing modern IT systems, he said. “I think FEMA has benefited with its engagement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection, and [U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology]. It has helped creative a positive IT environment.”

PRESSING POLICY MATTERS
Still, some FEMA policy issues need addressing. For one, there is the question of whether FEMA needs to more fully engage with state and local stakeholders as it develops new IT architecture. That could be important to avoid problems such as those experienced by the DHS Homeland Security Information Network.

DHS recently shut down that network because it replicated other available networks. The duplication arose, in part, due to a lack of early coordination with state and local agencies as the network was being developed, according to reports from the department’s Office of the Inspector General.

“The knowledge of what to do in emergencies does not reside solely within the National Capital Region,” Foresman said. “We would very much appreciate being contacted by FEMA so the state emergency managers could provide input, as their customers, on the IT systems that interface with the states,” said Kristin Cormier Robinson, director of government relations at the National Emergency Management Association.

Also, some wonder how accomodating FEMA’s new enterprise architecture will be to future technologies and standards. The key issue is whether FEMA will provide a standard template for disaster communications or a more open IT architecture that can be adapted more flexibly to different types of disasters.

Art Botterell — a former FEMA official and one of the authors of the Common Alerting Protocol emergency messaging standard developed by volunteers and now used by FEMA and other federal, state and local agencies — posed a series of questions about FEMA’s plan. “Will it provide more options in the future, or will it merely lock FEMA into a new generation of proprietary interfaces?” he asked.

Alice Lipowicz (alipowicz@1105govinfo.com) is a staff writer at Washington Technology.