News
Press Releases: Government to Government
November 25, 2002
FEMA And OMB Announce Pilot Launch Of Disasterhelp.Gov
Washington, DC - Joe M. Allbaugh, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), announced an information technology milestone for FEMA today.
Disasterhelp.gov, a one-stop portal for disaster preparedness and response information, entered its pilot launch phase today to test its ability to maximize the availability of information to first responders to minimize the effects of a disaster.
Ultimately, first responders and emergency managers will use disasterhelp.gov to share disaster response and recovery information with each other and public and private organizations.
"The feedback first responders will provide through this pilot launch will be invaluable as this innovative project moves forward," said FEMA Director Joe M. Allbaugh.
Disasterhelp.gov is part of the Disaster Management Initiative, one of the President’s top three electronic government initiatives. FEMA will be the managing partner agency of disasterhelp.gov with 26 additional partners. Disasterhelp.gov allows the partner agencies to share their information and services to governments, citizens, and businesses in a cost efficient manner.
In time, DisasterHelp.gov will focus on several important goals: interoperability between first responders, the capability (scalability) to support more than four million members of the first responder community, and collaboration applications to assist in disaster prevention, preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation.
Further developments will be announced in Spring 2003.
