Why California State Avoided WordPress for Emergency Websites

When we wrote about the hidden risks of relying on WordPress, Eric got in touch to share his story. Eric Kauffman, who was the Lead Application Architect at California Department of Technology, played a critical role in building emergency response websites during wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic. His firsthand experience showed why WordPress wasn’t the right choice for critical situations and how California prioritized reliability over convenience.

Eric’s story starts in the middle of a crisis.

"I was on my way to my in-laws’ house when they called me..."

Eric was helping his father-in-law move into assisted living when the wildfire crisis hit. Winds were howling, fires were spreading, and sheriffs were driving through neighborhoods, warning people to evacuate. At the same time, the Governor’s Office needed a website to deliver crucial information about the fires, power shutoffs, shelters, and evacuation routes.

“The websites we had weren’t built for emergencies,” Eric explained. “They looked nice, but they weren’t optimized to deliver information quickly. And with thousands of people trying to access them over overloaded cell networks, they just weren’t going to work.”

The Governor’s Office asked Eric’s team to build a new website that could consolidate updates from various agencies. They had just 24 hours to make it happen. The team initially planned to use WordPress but quickly realized it wasn’t up to the task.

Why California Avoided WordPress

California’s decision to avoid WordPress was driven by its limitations. Eric and his team had been testing WordPress on other projects and knew its weaknesses.

“When you start adding themes and plugins to WordPress, you get bloat. It slows everything down,” Eric said. “In an emergency, we didn’t have time to deal with that.”

WordPress also struggled under heavy traffic. “It’s a problem child when it comes to load. The only way to handle it is to add more plugins to offload content, but that just adds more complexity. There was no time for that.”

Security was another concern. WordPress is frequently targeted by hackers, and every plugin adds a new potential vulnerability. “It just wasn’t built for what we needed,” Eric said.

Faced with these issues, the team made a critical decision: they abandoned WordPress and turned to a simpler solution.

The Old-School Solution That Worked

With no time to waste, Eric’s team went back to basics. “We decided to build the site like we used to in the ’90s—just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. No images, no unnecessary JavaScript. Every byte had to count because people were accessing the site on congested cell networks.”

The static website was hosted on blob storage and served through Akamai as the CDN. “It was simple, efficient, and fast. The site handled a huge load without any issues.”

The solution wasn’t perfect. Updates required a developer on call 24/7, and making site-wide changes—like updating a header or footer—meant rewriting and re-uploading every single page. During COVID, when there were hundreds of pages to manage, this became even more time-consuming.

Lessons Learned from California’s Decision

Eric and his team learned firsthand that WordPress wasn’t built for emergencies. “It’s great for blogs and small business sites, but when you’re dealing with high traffic and time-sensitive updates, it becomes a liability.”

Even WordPress VIP, the enterprise version, couldn’t resolve these issues. “A few of my colleagues later used WordPress VIP, but they ran into the same problems: plugin conflicts, buggy themes, and constant security headaches. It’s expensive, and it doesn’t solve everything.”

California’s experience shows that when reliability is critical, the tools you choose matter. The static site was a lifeline during wildfires and COVID, offering simplicity and stability when WordPress couldn’t.

The Birth of CosmosCMS

After the pandemic, Eric decided to take the lessons he’d learned and build something new. He created CosmosCMS, inspired by the hybrid approach his team had used during the crises. CosmosCMS combines the reliability of static websites with the flexibility of dynamic updates, offering a lightweight alternative to WordPress.

“It’s designed to do what WordPress couldn’t. It’s fast, lean, and avoids the bloat that causes so many problems,” Eric said. By open-sourcing CosmosCMS, he hopes others can benefit from the lessons learned in those critical moments.

Why This Matters for Decision-Makers

California’s decision to avoid WordPress wasn’t just about technology—it was about delivering reliable information in the middle of a crisis. When lives and livelihoods were on the line, they prioritized simplicity, speed, and stability over convenience.

Eric put it best: “Go with the skills of the people you have. If your team knows WordPress and it’s working for you, great. But if you’re dealing with emergencies or high-traffic situations, look for something that won’t slow you down.”

For California, choosing the right tools wasn’t just a technical decision—it was a matter of trust. Their experience is a reminder for decision-makers everywhere: sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective.