Emergency Management, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVEs: TOWARD A NATIONAL RESPONSE STRATEGY

But I warn my colleagues that we will fail in our efforts to protect the homeland if we do not take additional steps to avoid a trade‐off between protecting ourselves against terrorist attacks and preparing for and responding to natural disasters.

—Congressman David Price, North Carolina

One of the key trends in emergency management in the United States has been the increasing role of the federal government in disaster response. As with so much in emergency management, this was not always the case. There was little interest and no statutory requirement for any national‐level planning until the 1980s. Indeed, even after the formation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), there was resistance to formal planning for natural hazards. However, changing public expectations have led to an increased response role for the government and brought about an evolution in assistance programs that borders on entitlement.

This shift in policy has been largely the result of what sociologists term focusing events, “key events that cause members of the public as well as elite decision‐makers to become aware of a potential policy failure (Birkland 1994).” While it is probably fair to say that almost all changes to disaster policy are the result of failures in the most recent disaster, disaster response policy has been shaped by the experiences of the government in responding to major disasters over the ...