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Technology Delivers for FEMA

FEMA staff realizes greater access to disaster aid information thanks to an integrated solution.

NEW YORK -- Information Builders and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) have partnered to provide the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a disaster relief program for flood victims, with an integrated solution to generate and deliver reports faster and obtain rapid online access to critical data at disaster scenes.

Utilizing Information Builders' WebFOCUS business intelligence technology, CSC built an extensive, analytic intranet called BureauNet, which taps directly into NFIP files.

"As a federal agency coordinating national disaster-response efforts, our need for quick retrieval of vital insurance claims and disaster-aid information is imperative to obtain our objectives, especially during the hurricane season," said Bonnie Shepard, FEMA Project Officer, NFIP Bureau Contract.

"WebFOCUS provides the immediate and crucial search capabilities we require, allowing us to forgo searching through many paper reports," she said. "Now we can simply browse through NFIP's BureauNet, select the desired insurance data, and generate onscreen reports and spreadsheets in a timely manner."

In its first major test, responding to the June 2001 Tropical Storm Allison, the technology delivered favorable results. FEMA staff gained high levels of access -- identifying, retrieving, charting, and analyzing claims from a particular zip code, above a certain dollar amount, or from a specific insurance company, to facilitate expeditious claims processing.

"In addition to the time saved in searching through massive amounts of paper reports, the WebFOCUS solution has saved FEMA more than 90 percent of the development cost and time that conventional solutions would have required," said Bill Barton, IT project manager for CSC.

"We are pleased that our technology aided FEMA in their mobilization and reaction time during Tropical Storm Allison," said Larry Reagan, director, Federal Systems Group, Information Builders. "And we are confident, that our technology will continue to provide FEMA with the highest level of accessibility and business intelligence capabilities required to generate immediate responses throughout the 2002 hurricane season."