Enlarge By Sean Gardner for USA TODAY Retired admiral Thad Allen, right, visits the Hopedale, La., command center on Sept. 13. Some of his detractors have softened their criticisms about his leadership during the BP oil spill.

"Adm. Allen helped move us through during some difficult times," said Mike Wiggins, mayor of Pensacola, Fla., one of several states hit by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

To others, Allen, national incident commander for the spill, is the public face of the federal government's early fumbling of the response, which allowed oil to seep into marshes and ruin livelihoods.

"What difference did he make once he came in? Where was the change? Where was the response?" asks third-generation Louisiana shrimper Acy Cooper. "We didn't see it."

Allen, 61, retires at the end of the month after overseeing the largest oil spill response in U.S. history, an undertaking that included more than 47,000 workers, 7,000 ships and millions of feet of boom to contain the spill offshore.

Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in April, killing 11 crewmembers, Allen has taken the lead on overseeing the government's response. The fate of Allen's legacy and how he is perceived to have handled that response differs widely.

During the containment and cleanup efforts, Allen weathered criticism from as high up as governors, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and from residents.

Shrimper Cooper recalls personally directing a fleet of fishermen to spot for oil because of what he calls a tepid federal response — a lapse he attributes to Allen.

Even Allen acknowledges a shaky start. As the vastness of the spill became clear, federal officials struggled with bypassing state laws to move in skimmers, boom and other equipment to the Gulf Coast, Allen said in a recent interview with USA TODAY.

Communication between federal and state officials was often slowed by federal rules governing spill response, he said, a lesson learned early on that should be applied to any new challenges. "In the future we need to understand there has to be some flexibility," Allen said. "By the time you pass it up the chain of command, you get the approval and you get the assets out there, (the oil) is on shore."

Many Gulf Coast residents recognized Allen as the Coast Guard official who helped lead response efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Allen replaced Michael Brown, the Federal Emergency Management Agency director criticized for the slow response during Katrina.

"He performed magnificently in a crisis," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview at the time of Allen's appointment to lead the oil spill response. "Nobody could have done it better."

Residents' anger

If Allen was the public face of the government's response to the spill, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser was the public face of residents' anger about the response. Early in the process, Nungesser publicly questioned Allen's leadership ability and called for Allen to step down, telling reporters, "He's not the right man for the job."

Allen said he, too, was frustrated in the early weeks of the response. The worst period was from May 23 to June 15, a time when thousands of fishermen were syncing up to keep the oil from reaching shore and local leaders were implementing their own initiatives with no central command structure — all while steady waves of oil were marching ashore, Allen said.

On June 15, on a trip from Florida to Washington aboard Air Force One, Allen told President Obama the situation was spiraling out of control and he needed control of the airspace over the Gulf, a command structure for the fishermen and more decision-makers at local posts, among other things, he said. The president agreed. That morning at 4 a.m., Allen awoke in his Washington home and wrote a three-page e-mail outlining the items discussed with Obama.

That was the beginning of what has become a doctrine on how to handle spills, Allen said. It was also the turning point in the response effort. "Things began to jell around that time," he said.

As local initiatives were implemented and communication improved, Nungesser said his perception of Allen improved. Last month, the two toured the Plaquemines marsh together then met for more than an hour. Nungesser apologized for his earlier criticism of Allen, he said.

Holding BP to task

One of Allen's expectations was to hold BP, who leased the rig and was responsible for the spill, to task during the containment efforts.

As Allen moved from meeting to briefing to news conference, he always had an open book in his hands or browsed the Internet on his mobile phone, said Allen's deputy, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger.

"I've never met anyone who does his homework better," Neffenger said.

For some, Allen's lasting image is of the person in charge early in the disaster when the federal government scrambled to handle the spill. It took at least six weeks for the federal response to fully come up to speed, while oil oozed into marshes, said Deano Bonano, Jefferson Parish's head of homeland security. "After Katrina, Adm. Allen was considered by most to be a hero," Bonano said. "This kind of reduced that image."

Coast Guard officials last week declared the runaway wellhead officially dead. Allen's successor, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, will be in the role a few more months before the position vanishes altogether.