This week the gang and I had the privilege to meet with Dr. Attila Nyikos, who is the head of Hungary’s National Disaster Management International Relations department. We were able to better understand how the Hungarian government (and all governments) coordinates disaster relief, cleanup, and prevention efforts. Mr. Nyikos is one of those people who just look important, and he was wearing a suit coat with jeans which is a bold look no matter where you are in the world. He started out by explaining to us exactly what his agency was and what it did. He compared it to FEMA in the states, except his department is larger in scale and includes civil positions such as firefighters. He also spoke about the disaster management in depth, explaining that law enforcement and civil duty are the two cornerstones of successful disaster relief and management efforts.
This is a photo of Mr. Nyikos. I found this image on google, so you know he's important!
Mr. Nyikos described the basic system that disaster management follows. It follows three basic pillars: Prevention, Response, and Recovery. He explained that like any country there are many different types of disaster scenarios that Hungary could be vulnerable to, and it was his offices duty to be prepared for whatever may happen. These include but are not limited to natural disasters, flooding, pollution of water supplies, and the maintaining of nuclear power plants. He also explained the different challenges his department faced over the last ten years. These include terrorism, heat waves, heavy rainfall, and the now infamous red sludge incident.
One of the most interesting parts of the talk was his description of his role in Hungary’s Presidency of the EU last spring. He explained that during Hungary’s presidency he took over the EU’s office of Disaster Management. This means that during this time he presided over the safety of the over 485 million people living in the EU member states. He also described the EU’s Mechanism Operations during this time, and they included helping the United States with the gulf oil “deep water horizon” incident, along with the massive tsunami in Japan. He described how his organization sent tons of food to Japan including dried soup, apples, and apricots. He acknowledged how awkward it was that apricots were one the things sent, but he insisted upon the fact that the Japanese people had requested them. One of the boldest things he said was that during the crisis Japan lied to both its people and the rest of the world regarding radiation levels in the inflicted areas!
This is a photo of some of the damage done by the red-sludge incident in October, 2010. This was an extremely difficult clean-up process for Mr. Nyikos and his organization.
The talk was extremely interesting and educational and I think everyone took away valuable information regarding how government agencies coordinate disaster relief efforts. However, I had mixed feeling regarding Mr. Nyikos as a speaker. In one regard he was extremely smart and clearly very distinguished for his young age. On the other hand he at points came off as smug and somewhat full of himself; essentially he was not afraid to toot his own horn. I also felt that his answers to our questions were extremely dubious. For instance, I asked him what the Hungarian people’s response to the disaster was and he responded, “extremely positive”. Now I don’t want to call him a liar, but I highly doubt that a large majority of the Hungarian people were too happy with the government and its cleanup agencies after the red-sludge incident. This is not to imply that Mr. Nyikos and his agency didn’t do a good job, but rather that anytime an environmental disaster occurs the people will inevitably blame the government. On top of that, several Hungarians we have met have expressed their displeasure with the whole incident and the government’s handling of it. Yet as a whole, the presentation was both informative and entertaining and gave us a different perspective on things from a person who is very distinguished in his field.
I would hope that Mike Brown and W wouldn't say that the public response to their handling of Katrina was "extremely positive"
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