In the aftermath of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, government reviews highlighted the need to implement a comprehensive Common Operating Picture (COP). The COP requirements were to provide the situational awareness needed to improve understanding and facilitate collaborative decision-making across all echelons. Today, seven years after Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government's lead entity for disaster response, has yet to implement a comprehensive COP, why? FEMA has made notable advances in programs that support coordination and collaboration and has established an active posture focused on situational awareness. However, these advances serve purposes other than that of establishing a COP. To answer the research question it was first necessary to describe how FEMA currently obtains information to create situational awareness for disaster response. Next it was necessary to examine the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina to identify the information that were needed by emergency managers but lacked. Lastly, research was necessary to determine the authority and responsibilities that govern state, local and federal decision-making because those responsibilities determine their information needs. The Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) and the National Response Framework (NRF) were excellent sources for that information. FEMA's inability to implement a collaborative tool has not been hindered by technology, as numerous agencies have implemented a COP. The evidence indicated that the major obstacles to creating a COP were contextual understanding, access to needed data and conflict resolution within a virtual environment. The NRF provides the foundation for the authorities and relationships between state and federal responders. The NRF states disasters are local and the state bears the burden and responsibility to provide for its citizens when a disaster occurs. Once the state has exhausted its resources it will then request federal assistance to support response and recovery operations. It is not until federal assistance is requested that state response decisions and information becomes available to federal responders. Until access to locally held data is guaranteed to federal emergency response agencies from the onset, addressing the remaining obstacles is not possible.

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