Without Warning and Defenseless

This chapter describes how the public also vented anger and frustration at agents of government whose job it was to protect people before a natural disaster occurred. The public was incensed at having received no warnings from the National Weather Service (NWS) and demanded to know why their local civil defense organizations had failed in the midst of the crisis. The public expected to hold someone responsible for the death and the destruction of property. Assigning blame is an integral component of American democracy; in order for change to occur, the electorate must assign responsibility when the government fails so they can pressure officials into improving public policy. In response to the public outrage, elected officials conducted a series of hearings into what went wrong before and during the Hurricane Agnes disaster. State senator Bill Smith, who was unable to get Governor Nelson Rockefeller to agree to a special legislative session, teamed up with Senate majority leader Warren Anderson to hold special hearings into government failures during the disaster. These investigations would show just how tattered the disaster safety net had become in the days before Hurricane Agnes.

Playing Politics with Disaster

This chapter examines how Richard Nixon mixed politics and policy in his response to Hurricane Agnes. To aid in winning his reelection bid in 1972, Nixon was determined to play politics with disaster relief legislation, mainly as it applied to New York and Pennsylvania. In order to gain Nixon as many votes as possible from the disaster, the Nixon White House wrote, and Congress enacted, the most generous disaster aid package in American history to that time: the Agnes Recovery Act of 1972. The relationship between disasters and elections has generated a body of research that shows a strong correlation between when and where presidents issue a disaster declaration. Disaster declarations are more frequent in highly competitive swing states during presidential election years, and presidents favor those states that may benefit them or their party in the election, as Nixon did in response to Hurricane Agnes.

Local Disasters, Government Actors, and National Policy

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Hurricane Agnes, which swept through New York and Pennsylvania in late June of 1972. National trends influenced the federal and local response to the disaster. Hurricane Agnes struck the United States less than five months before the 1972 presidential election, and Richard Nixon's response to Hurricane Agnes was one variable in that election, which charted the course of American politics for the next three decades. In order to win reelection in 1972, President Nixon enacted the most substantial disaster aid package in history to that time, termed the Agnes Recovery Act, which he was convinced was the key to winning New York and Pennsylvania. The chapter then explains that local leaders played a crucial role in responding to the crisis in their communities and in flood recovery operations and rebuilding. Often neglected in studies of natural disaster policy is the way in which local leadership from government and the private sector interacted with representatives of the federal government to restore order and implement change. The chapter also introduces the Federal Office of Emergency Management (FEMA).