Thousands of stranded travelers sprawled languidly on the frosty floors of the snowbound Jejudo Island airport late last month, awaiting their flights and wrapped in thin blankets or even cardboard boxes with no promise of when they would take off. 

As the record snowfall grounded nearly 90,000 passengers by its third day, dozens of infuriated tourists occupied a local budget carrier desk, decrying its lack of prior notice and mishandling of the situation, also demanding lodging and food. Then an overwhelmed Chinese man jumped onto the counter and hurled a chair toward the conveyer belt, prompting the police to subdue him, which in turn fueled his countrymen’s rage.

In the midst of the pandemonium, the main source of the crowds’ frustration appeared to have come down to one question: Who will step up and take responsibility?

“I wish there were at least medical staff. I’m worried about children because the floor is so cold,” a passenger surnamed Chung from Asan, South Chungcheong Province, said in a media interview. Another tourist surnamed Sohn from Daegu said: “There’s no transportation here -- only six taxis come in the space of an hour. But everyone is saying they’re not responsible.”

The debacle was only the latest in a chain of events that has sparked questions over the past several years about the country’s risk and crisis management capabilities and divulged the gloomy byproducts of its breakneck economic ascent.

In April 2014, the nation was in grief after the Sewol ferry sinking left 304 people dead or missing. Six months later, the “nut rage” incident broke out, during which a Korean Air heiress ordered the pilot of her flight to return a taxiing plane at a New York airport for an “inappropriate” serving of nuts. The summer of 2015 saw the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak, which left 38 dead and brought to light the country’s overall ineptness in containing the virus.

Following each debacle, the central and local governments and involved companies conceded to their blunders and scurried to release measures to prevent a future relapse, only after the damage was done, and only to be faced with yet another fiasco sooner than later.

“Facing a crisis at hand, you would have caution and a resolve not to let it repeat, but the problem is that as soon as it’s over, everything tends to get back to business as usual,” said Yu Min-yeong, chief executive of Acase, a Seoul-based crisis management consulting firm.

“Be it the government or a company, they are supposed to increase systematic readiness through simulations built on manuals, but instead the wishful thinking would prevail that such things will not happen again.” 

Crisis management refers to an organization putting into place a set of processes to handle unexpected events that pose harm, thereby equipping them to be more reactive. Risk management, in turn, is an ongoing process to detect potential threats and prepare measures to avoid such risks. Hence it is more proactive.

Risk and crisis management therefore require on-the-spot and ex post facto management of risk factors, but the short attention span of the government creates permanent damage.

The government has seen its public confidence quickly erode as it has unsuccessfully managed risks and crises, instead nurturing the widespread perception that it is pretty much incapable of ensuring social safety. 

According to a 2014 survey by Statistics Korea on some 37,000 citizens aged 13 or older, almost 51 percent of the respondents said they felt society is less safe than before, up a whopping 13 percentage points from a year before. More than 20 percent picked man-made disasters as the top potential source of social anxiety, three times the 2012 rate and slightly outstripping national security and crime. The agency’s 2015 study did not include safety-related questions.

In the corporate world, the importance of risk management is relatively better understood, as it is vital to forecasting, precluding and responding to challenges and promoting brand prestige.

The task typically lies with in-house legal and communication teams, but their partnership has been increasingly critical, especially in line with the advent of social media, experts say.

Meanwhile, social media has brought a fresh twist to communications dynamics in recent years. While providing a vibrant helping hand for policy and brand promotion, its rapid rise and ubiquity on almost all fronts of society also exposes both public and private entities to greater risks.

Now a small technical glitch or slip of the tongue -- or keyboard -- by one single operator of the Facebook or Twitter account could catapult its owner to the center of a sometimes witch-hunt-like online rebuke in a twinkle. It would be probably too late, with thousands of “shares” and “retweets” already, however hard the operator tried to fix or contain it.

“The significance of crisis management is greater than ever as a crisis could now spread with an unprecedented, uncontrollable extent and speed due to the emergence of mobile devices and social networks,” said Jung Kyung-hwa, online team group director at KPR & Associates Inc., a public relations solutions provider in Seoul. 

“While the regular scanning and monitoring of potentially problematic issues is pivotal in preventing a crisis, a prompt, active response should be made when it actually happens. After quickly grasping the situation, its type and character and how much responsibility you should take (should be decided).”

The list of potential sources of crisis only continues to grow in line with new challenges mankind is faced with -- climate change, cyber threats and other nonconventional threats -- which could return to haunt the country with a greater magnitude and in diverse forms. 

To shake off complacency and better prepare for crises, the resolve of leadership is essential, Yu said, though citizens and other elements of society also play a crucial role in bringing about a consciousness shift.

“As the final decision-maker, top management should have the capacity to quickly identify and assess risks and take action and then follow-up steps in light of the strict top-down discipline across society,” he added.

“The culture where nobody can ‘bell the cat’ is one of the most precarious factors for Korea’s crisis management. To fix this, the leadership’s open mind is a must, and even with its absence, the organization should have a team nonetheless that can swiftly control the situation when a crisis erupts.”

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)