Federal Emergency Management Information System (FEMIS) data management guide, version 1.4.5

The Federal Emergency Management Information System (FEMIS) information resources are described in this FEMIS Data Management Guide. To comprehend what types of data are present, where the data is located, and how it is managed during the life span of the system, a basic understanding of the FEMIS architecture is necessary. The system is being developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and is designed for a single Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP) site that has multiple Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs). The capability to connect to remote CSEPP sites and share information will be present in a future release. Each EOC has personal computers (PCs) that emergency planners and operations personnel use to do their jobs. These PCs are connected via a local area network (LAN) to servers that provide efficient EOC-wide services. Each EOC is interconnected to other EOCs via telecommunications links. FEMIS is a client/server system where much of the application software is located in the client PC. This client software integrates the FEMIS application, government furnished dispersion and evacuation models, and Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software tools such as the ArcView geographic information system (GIS) and Microsoft Project (electron planning). A UNIX server provides data management services, ARC/INFO GIS capabilities, evacuation (Evac) modeling, electron main (E-mail), and meteorological (Met) input processing. A PC communication utility is available to interface with external subsystems. At this time, the weather collection system (Handar Met System) is the only external subsystem