Redwood City – Emergency managers from South Korea traveled 5,500 miles to exchange ideas with experts from the Department of Emergency Management on their shared risks from earthquakes, floods and fires.
“You are recognized leaders, and we are excited about what we are doing here but look forward to learning what you are doing back home,” County Executive Mike Callagy said in welcoming remarks at the County of San Mateo’s Regional Operations Center, or ROC.
“We have always been close partners with your country,” Callagy said as an interpreter bridged the communication divide, “and we value the information that you can bring to us.”
Emergency managers in South Korea and San Mateo County face similar challenges. The country and the county sit directly across the Pacific Ocean (Seoul, the South Korean capital, sits at the same latitude as Pescadero) and are perched hard on the edge of continents.
And just like San Mateo County, South Korea experiences risks from major earthquakes, wildfires, heat waves and rising sea levels fueled by a warming planet.
Dr. Shruti Dhapodkar, director of the County’s Department of Emergency Management, recently led the 20 visitors on a behind-the-scenes tour of the ROC and the County’s 9-1-1 Public Safety Communications department.
The two-story building serves as the central location for officials from local, state and federal agencies to coordinate response efforts, centralize decision making, gather and disseminate information and deploy resources.
In a disaster or local emergency, access to information can help keep you and your family safe. Local officials encourage residents to sign up for SMC Alert, which offers users to receive messages on urgent or emergency situations via text, email and other platforms.
Dhapodkar said four pillars guide local emergency management: preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery.
Ho Geong Cho, a member of the visiting delegation, said through an interpreter the South Korean model focuses more on the aftermath of a disaster and less on preparation. Cho planned to take fresh ideas back to where she works in Geochang, located about 150 miles south of Seoul.
While most emergency management concepts – keep people safe – span cultures and languages, some of the words and common shorthand can pose challenges for even the best of translators. (At 468 pages, the official “FEMA Acronyms, Abbreviations and Terms” includes mouthfuls like GNCSODR for the Global Network of Civil Society Organizations for Disaster Reduction.)
During the visit, the translator had been kept busy coming up with Korean equals for such terms as ameliorate and dug deep to put some Korean terms into English.
So at one point, Dhapodkar, reading the room, said, “There’s two things we are doing,” taking a short break to smile, “that are cool.” The translator smiled back.
Cari E. Guittard
Department of Emergency Management
650-363-4790
cguittard@smcgov.org