'Korea needs FEMA-like anti-disaster agency'
By Jung Min-ho
Joe Allbaugh former FEMA head
In a disaster, “Time equals lives,” says Joe Allbaugh, a former top U.S. disaster control official.
When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, Allbaugh, the then-chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), had just been giving a speech on terrorism in front of emergency directors from all 50 states at a conference in Bozeman, Montana.
He immediately contacted then-President George W. Bush. And that night, thanks to the power given by the President, he brought in more than 7,000 people to help the recovery process.
“It was an immediate response. No bureaucracy,” Allbaugh said in an interview with The Korea Times Wednesday.
Referring to the Sewol ferry sinking, he wishes resources could have been better coordinated.
“It would be unfair to compare the response to the Sewol incident and the one to 9/11. They are totally different. Every major disaster requires a unique response,” he said. “However, Korea might need a disaster control organization like FEMA, a nimble agency, where a small group of people can directly communicate with the president.”
FEMA was a small agency, but it had capabilities to expand or contract based upon the crisis, he said.
“When some major incident occurs, it gathers all the facts, disperses the facts, keeps the president informed and hears from the president,” he said.
“The president is the ultimate decision-maker,” he said. “And the president can only achieve the right decision if there is a direct line of communication with those responding to the incident or the crisis.”
He said that the Korean government’s botched rescue operation was not the result of first-responders.
“They know how to do their job. But there is no mechanism for everyone to come together at the time of crisis. There just needs to be coordination among agencies on the local level and central government level so there won’t be any finger-pointing,” he said.
Allbaugh, now CEO of Allbaugh International Group, a consulting firm, visited Korea to meet with Korean government authorities, including high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Security and Public Administration and the National Emergency Management Agency.
“My heart bleeds for those families who are missing their loved ones and for those who still don’t have a lot of answers. They deserve some answers,” he said. “The government should share the information with the public because when the public doesn’t know, then everybody starts second-guessing. And they don’t know a lot.”
The facts should come out at some point and rules, regulations and protocols should be put in place so it never happens again, he said.