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Playing Politics with Natural Disaster , livre ebook

Cornell University Press - W. Kneeland Timothy

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246 pages

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Hurricane Agnes struck the United States in June of 1972, just months before a pivotal election and at the dawn of the deindustrialization period across the Northeast. The response by local, state, and national officials had long-term consequences for all Americans. President Richard Nixon used the tragedy for political gain by delivering a generous relief package to the key states of New York and Pennsylvania in a bid to win over voters. After his landslide reelection in 1972, Nixon cut benefits for disaster victims and then passed legislation to push responsibility for disaster preparation and mitigation on to states and localities. The impact led to the rise of emergency management and inspired the development of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).With a particular focus on events in New York and Pennsylvania, Timothy W. Kneeland narrates how local, state, and federal authorities responded to the immediate crisis of Hurricane Agnes and managed the long-term recovery. The impact of Agnes was horrific, as the storm left 122 people dead, forced tens of thousands into homelessness, and caused billions of dollars in damage from Florida to New York. In its aftermath, local officials and leaders directed disaster relief funds to rebuild their shattered cities and reshaped future disaster policies.Playing Politics with Natural Disaster explains how the political decisions by local, state, and federal officials shaped state and national disaster policy and continues to influence emergency preparedness and response to this day.

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Histoire

Natural disaster

History of the Americas

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Publié par	Cornell University Press
Date de parution	15 avril 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781501748554
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	12 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,7500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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PLAYING POLITICS WITH NATURAL DISASTER

PLAYING POLITICS WITH NATURAL DISASTER Hurricane Agnes, the 1972 Election, and the Origins of FEMA

TiMOtHY W. KNEElàND

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Kneeland, Timothy W., 1962–author. Title: Playing politics with natural disaster : Hurricane Agnes, the 1972 election, and the origins of FEMA / Timothy W. Kneeland. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identiﬁers: LCCN 2019024694 (print) | LCCN 2019024695 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501748530 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501748547 (epub) | ISBN 9781501748554 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency. | Hurricane Agnes, 1972—Political aspects. | Hurricanes—Political aspects.— New York (State) | Hurricanes—Political aspects.—Pennsylvania. | Natural disasters—Political aspects—United States. | Disaster relief— Political aspects.—United States. | Disaster relief—Government policy— United States. | Emergency management—Political aspects—United States. | Emergency management—Government policy—United States. Classiﬁcation: LCC HV636 1972.U6 K54 2020 (print) | LCC HV636 1972.U6 (ebook) | DDC 363.34/92256097309047—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019024694 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019024695

Cover photograph: Rescue workers direct Hurricane Agnes evacuees to a shelter center in WilkesBarre, Pennsylvania, June 24, 1972. Courtesy of the Scranton TimesTribune.

For my wife, Laura, and children, Adam, Aaron, Ben, and Anna, who took many trips along the Susquehanna and listened patiently to stories that began, “It was 1972 when Hurricane Agnes . . .”

Disaster preparedness is a task never completed.

—George A. Lincoln

Contents

Preface Abbreviations Cast of Characters

Introduction: Local Disasters, Government Actors, and National Policy

1. American Disaster Policy through 1972: Growing Beneﬁts and Expanding Federal Authority 2. Agnes Makes Landfall: Death and Destruction in New York and Pennsylvania, 1972 3. Who’s in Charge? Local Governments Collapse in the Face of Disaster 4. Playing Politics with Disaster: Relief Efforts and the 1972 Election 5. “I Have a HUDAche”: Public Discontent over Disaster Aid 6. “Better Than Ever”? Rebuilding amid Industrial Decline 7. Without Warning and Defenseless: The Weather Service and Civil Defense before and after Hurricane Agnes 8. The Risky Business of Flood Control: When Dams and Levees Put People at Risk 9. The Disaster Relief Act of 1974: Richard Nixon and the Creation of Emergency Management

Epilogue: Into the Future

Notes Selected Bibliography Index

îx xîîî xv

104

119

135

156

161 209 221

Preface

The application of history to the task of understanding and analyzing public policy inspired this book, which is a study of Hurricane Agnes and American disaster policy from the top down and the bottom up. Although federal disaster assistance is crucial to mending people’s lives and rebuilding their towns and cities, disasters are local affairs and the rebuilding of shattered communities is overseen and managed by local ﬁgures. Even though they are localized, disasters do not occur in a vacuum. Existing policies, political trends, and the administra tive power of the federal government impact the response to, and outcome of, any disaster. When I began this work, I was less sensitive to the importance of the local context of disaster, which is too often neglected in the literature. Nor was I then aware of how signiﬁcant Richard Nixon’s response to the disaster would be for national policy making. The location of a disaster, the political context for the timing of the event, and the political inﬂuence of local and state ofﬁcials shaped the federal response to the Agnes disaster in ways I did not realize. I drew several critical lessons from my study of Hurricane Agnes. First was how unprepared the people and government were for the magnitude of that catastrophe. They were caught off guard even though there was sufﬁcient data available to all involved that a ﬂood in the Susquehanna River Basin, which in cluded Corning, Elmira, WilkesBarre, and Harrisburg, was not only likely, but in fact inevitable. Ignoring the history of past ﬂoods and relying too heavily on technological solutions promoting the myth that the federal government would warn and protect the public allowed these communities to encourage develop ment along their rivers, which heightened the risk to their properties and their lives. Residents and elected ofﬁcials relied on the idea that their dams and levees weresecurefromﬂoodingandthattheirweatherforecastingwouldprovidethemwith advanced warning of a disaster, neither of which proved correct. Perhaps becausetheypresumedthatthegovernmentwouldprotectthem,theylackedalocal agency of ﬁrst responders that could assist in warning and evacuation in an emergency. They had no plan for recovery after the ﬂooding and no interest in changing the very policies that had put their cities and towns in harm’s way. Working on this book from the mid2000s through 2018 made it clear that some things had not changed since 1972. Time and again the public has been caught unaware or unprepared for devastating events such as Hurricane Katrina

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