Here is a good question.  Who is in charge when a natural or manmade disaster strikes the United States?

The Strong Watchman

When a natural or manmade disaster strikes the United States, which federal agency is in charge of the response?

The answer is all of them and none of them, former Commandant of the Coast Guard retired Adm. Thad Allen suggested recently.

Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5, released in 2003, said that the Department of Homeland Security secretary takes command of a non-defense related catastrophe. A presidential policy directive released in April this year reiterated this.

“Tell that to [Health and Human Services] in a pandemic,” Allen said at the National Defense Industrial Association homeland security conference.

Since his retirement in 2010, Allen has emerged as a leading voice in the disaster response community. 

He speaks from experience. In 2005, he was commandant when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. The Coast Guard, with its noteworthy performance rescuing victims of the storm from New Orleans rooftops, was one of the few federal agencies that emerged from the disaster with a burnished rather than tarnished reputation. 

Allen was on the cusp of retirement in April 2010 when the BP Deepwater Horizon platform exploded and began to gush petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed him national incident commander. 

“One of the most difficult things I had to do was explain to everybody that I was the national incident commander. You think that sounds pretty easy, right?

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