March 10, 2006—FM:Systems’ software was used by Wake County, North Carolina’s General Services Administration (GSA) to relocate evacuees in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the company says.
GSA relied on FM:Interact, FM:Systems’ flagship product, to organize and convey facility information to both the evacuees and service providers such as FEMA and the Red Cross, explains the provider of integrated workplace management systems. More than 400 evacuees were sheltered within 30 days.
In September 2005, Wake County and the City of Raleigh were notified by federal and state authorities to prepare an evacuation shelter within 24 hours. In partnership with other county agencies, the GSA was able to find and lease an 180,000-square-foot building and bring on line critical life safety, mechanical, security, and cafeteria systems—all within one day.
Once the facility was ready, FM:Interact helped GSA organize critical services in the facility such as FEMA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Post Office, Social Security, HUD, and the Employment Security Commission as well as individual rooms for evacuees and their families. As a result, more than 400 evacuees were admitted to the shelter.
“Within 36 hours, we had a framework for managing the evacuees and all the services they needed. This created a common language around the building that resulted in a very efficient and organized operation. Evacuees knew where they needed to go for services and support,” said David L. Goodwin, director of GSA. “As evacuees transitioned out of the temporary shelter and the evacuee population declined we used FM:Interact to consolidate the remaining evacuees. This reduced the square footage and support required to manage the population and eased the location and connection of evacuees to the service providers they needed.”
Added Goodwin: “We did not change one business process to do this, we just applied what we knew and ‘added a building’ in our existing FM:Systems solution.”
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