Analysis of the U.S. government response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 remind us that inter-governmental and intra-governmental communication plays an important role in effective response to disaster. Hurricane Katrina highlighted the lack of information sharing across levels of government and sectors and showed that such gaps in sharing contribute to slower and uncoordinated response and insufficient deployment of resources. The response to Hurricane Sandy was much more effective because of the lessons learned from Katrina about cross-boundary information sharing but problems still existed. The conclusion that more complex and severe incidents require more coordination and information sharing across levels of government and functional agencies makes it increasingly important to increase information sharing capability as part of EM. This paper presents the argument that the unique and important opportunity of leveraging OGD in this regard requires continued attention and investment in ways that maximize value in the form of more effective and efficient emergency response efforts.