FEMA Alerted to Computer Ills Pre-Katrina

A new internal audit of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s information-sharing system has found that, despite claims to the contrary, former FEMA chief Michael Brown was warned weeks before Katrina that backlogged computer systems could affect the agency’s emergency response.

The Associated Press is reporting that the audit, released last week, found that the agency’s information-sharing system was overwhelmed during the busy 2004 hurricane season. The audit came just one day after Brown defended FEMA for its response to Katrina and blamed state and local officials for the chaos caused by the storm.

AP says the audit was a review by Homeland Security Department acting Inspector General Richard L. Skinner, and looked at FEMA's response to four major hurricanes and a tropical storm that hit Florida and the Gulf Coast in August and September 2004.

“FEMA’s systems do not support effective or efficient coordination of deployment operations because there is no sharing of information,” the report says. “Consequently, this created operational inefficiencies and hindered the delivery of essential disaster response and recovery services.”

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke told AP that parts of the report were misleading because FEMA's system was never designed to track supplies.

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