In the aftermath of a recent series of tornadoes and floods that devastated portions of the southeastern United States, government contractor Partnership for Response and Recovery (PaRR) Inspections is employing radio frequency identification to help it distribute Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) inspection kits to its field workers efficiently, and to ensure that all items within those kits are accounted for after inspections are completed. By attaching EPCGen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags to each kit's contents, PaRR has an automated way of tracking which personnel have which items, and ensuring all items are ultimately returned.
When a federal disaster is declared, FEMA's inspection contractors send field workers to assess claims for homes and businesses damaged or destroyed. The workers are issued kits filled with a variety of FEMA-owned electronic equipment-typically, a laptop computer, a camera, batteries and battery chargers-necessary for gathering data that is then usually stored on the devices and sent to a back-end server once an internet connection can be found.
