If you’ve ever applied for relief from FEMA, you know how long it takes to get a check. I know—I got a relief check after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, when just about everything I owned that could break broke. The check took weeks to arrive.

Not so in the Southeast. Victims of hurricanes got checks in a matter of two or three days, thanks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s new intranet, which includes wireless capabilities. A Computerworld article explains that FEMA set up a field office in Orlando and linked computers to the intranet to process relief requests. FEMA is not ready for a widespread rollout of the network; they’re still working on some security and policy issues. But the notion that an intranet can serve an organization in an emergency is an important one. And if the federal government can do it…