finalPlatt-1999-Shoulderingtheburdenfederalassumptionofdisa.pdf

DISASTERS AND

DEMOCRACY The Politics of Extreme Natural Events

RUTHERFORD H . PLATT

WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY

Miriam Gradie Anderson, Alexandra D. Dawson, Jessica Spelkejansujwicz, Ute]. Dymon,

K. Beth O'Donnell, Claire B. Rubin, and David Scherf

:l::N¼11 A"<--ho-v

ISLAND PRESS Washington, D.C. ♦ Covelo, California

Introduction

DISASTERS BEFORE 1950: COPING WITHOUT CONGRESS

For its firsr 160 years of narionhood, the Uni red States had no general policy or program for responding ro natural or human-caused disasters. Such catastrophes as the New Madrid, Missouri, Earthquakes of 1811-1812, the Chicago Fire of 1873, the Johnsrown, Pennsylvania, Dam Break in 1889, the Galveston Hurri­ cane of 1900, the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, the Miami Hurri­ cane of 1926, the Lower Mississippi Flood of 1927, and the New England Hur­ ricane of 1938 ravaged portions of the nation periodically. Deaths from such disasters numbered in the hundreds, and sometimes in rhe thousands. Costs in present-day terms ran into rhe billions of dollars. The costliest hurricane in American history struck Miami in 1926 causing an estimated $39 billion in damage as adjusted to 1992 dollars, considerably higher than the $24 billion in losses attributable to Hurricane Andrew in 1992.1 Yer while the latter event triggered an avalanche of federal assistance, the 1 926 storm went almost unno­ ticed nationally.

The U.S. Congress was not entirely unmoved by these and other disasters: Between 1803 and 1947, 128 specific acts expressed sympathy and sometimes supplied token financial assistance.2 But the casks of accual response, rescue, repair, and reconstruction were organized under local auspices, with financial and other assistance contributed by scares, cities, churches, and various sources outside the disaster area. Furthermore, reduction of vulnerability to natural haz­ ards ("mitigation"), was accomplished, if ar all, through actions taken individu­ ally or at the local level prior to the 1930s. In 1888 when the Brighton Beach Hotel at Coney Island, New York, was threatened by erosion, irs owner-the Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railroad-jacked the structure up and hauled it 450 feet landward on a flotilla of flatcars.3 After a hurricane killed over 6000 people at Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, homes and streets were gradually elevated and Galveston Counry built a six-mile, 16-foot-high sea wall.4 The Army Corps of Engineers initially provided only rechnical assistance, although it later extended the wall another four miles. 5 After rhe 1906 San Fran­ cisco Earthquake, the nation's greatest urban disaster thus far, the federal role was chiefly to provide Army troops to deter looting. The American Red Cross,

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2 INTRODUCTION

working closely with ocher charitable and civic organizations, provided food and shelter using funds and supplies sent from communities across the nation and from several foreign countries. 6

When the 1.ower Mississippi River broke through ics levees in 1927, spread­ ing across 20,000 square miles of floodplains, governors of six affected states pleaded for federal assisrance. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover assumed direcrion of emergency response involving scace and local aurhoci­ ties and their m!litias, the Corps_ of Engineers, che Coast Guard, a naval aiI coocingeoc, the Wearher BL1Ieau., and the Red Cross.7 They had cheir hands full: 162,000 hor:nes were flooded, 41,000 of chem demoyed, and 325,000 people were cared for in Red Cross camps and 311,000 ochers fed by the Red Cross in private homes.8 \'(/hiJe financial assiscance ro victims was largely provided through private coacribucions, chac disaster srimulaced federal re­ sponse. of a different nature, namely mea�ures co coorrol flood waters through 1:he consrrucrion of dams, levees, and diversion channels. The Lower Mjssis­ sippi flood C.ontrol Act of 1928 and its succt:sso,s in l936 and 1938 launched the Corps of Engineers multi.billion dollar program to came the nation's major rivers. Referring co the 1927 flood, hydrologists William G. Hoyt and Walter B. Langbein have wrircen: "Few oacural events have had a more lasriog impact on our engineering concepcs, economic thought, anJ policical policy in the field of floods. Prior co 1927 control of floods in the United Scares was considered largely a l.oc-al responsibility. Soon after 1927, the con­ trol of floods became a national problem and a federal. responsihiliry."9 (See Figure 1-1.)

While the federal government cbus assumed increasing responsihiliry co build flood concro.l projects as part of rhe larger New Deal public works program to combac the Grear Depression, it remained aloof from providing direct assis­ caace co disascer victims. Before 1950, disaster assistance was viewed u the moral responsibility of neighbors, churches, charities, and communities-nor: the federal government. Furthermore, disasters tended co be· viewed a:s unavoid­ able "acts of God," which, by definition., tc:an..-;cend che power of government co p.revenr. According ro a 1916 court decision: ''Ac:rs of God_ .. are chose events, accidenrs, or manifesracions of narure which proceed from natural causes, and which are unusual and llnprecedeared in char-accer and cannot be reasonabl_}' ancicipa.ted or guarded against by the exercise of ordinary rnre_"lO The :wailabil­ icy of rbis common law defense, while not always .sufficient to protecr a defen­ dant from liability. served ro cloak govemmenc inacrion wich a pseudo-theolog­ ical alibi: "What will be, ,viii be." It is oucrnoded today in Light of improved scientific undersr:aodi ng of place-specific nacural hazards.11

Fatalism regarding natural disasters was reinforced by the pre vailing gospel of "laissez-faire," namely chat government should never interfere in the private marker economy. This doctrine originated with the eighceenth -cenrury English

INTRODUCTION 3

FIGURE I-1 Sandbagging along the Connecticut Rive r, 1927. (Photo:

Holyoke Water Power Co.)

political philosopher Adam Smith, who wrote in The \1?ealth nf Nations chat an individual who "intends only his own gain" is "led by an invisible hand co pro­ mote ... the public interest."12 The doctr ine of laissez-faire sti fled attempts to regulate corporate actions or building practices even when human negligence and avarice were manifest. For instance, after the dam failure chat killed 2209 people in Johnstown, Pennsy lvania, on May 31, l 889, government at all levels was silem despite widespread public outcry in the press. The earthen dam and lake chat it impounded were t he private property of a Pittsburgh milliona_ire club whose members used the facility as a summer ret reat. Desp ite ample warn­ ings char the dam was unsa fe, no sufficient repairs were made. The resulting dis­ aster was judicia lly deemed an "act of God" and the c lub was never held respon­ sible.13 Congress provided no disaster relief and did nothing to ensure chat such a d isaster would not be repeated there or elsewhe re. This was the golden age of laissez-faire and deference to wealth.

Cities were capable of addressing their public infrastructure needs, but usu- ally allowed private land co be built or rebnilt as the market saw fie. San Fran­ cisco after its 1906 eanhquake and fire acted boldly to expand its water suppl y, whose failure was blamed for the burning of much of the city. Wich approval of che federal government (but o ver che objections of John Muir), the city dammed the Hetch Hecchy River in Yosemite National Park and built an aqueduct co

I

4 INTRODUCTION

lead water 150 miles from che Sierra Nevada to che city. But in the rush to

rebuild the city itself, private capital insisted on following the original grid

street pattern, ignoring a new cicy plan for redevelopment more compatible with

the city's unigue and hazardous site.14 (See Chapter 8.) By the early 1900s, the progressive reform movement was beginning to chal­

lenge laissez-faire as outdated and dangerous in a complex capitalist society.

Among the many concerns of reformers such as Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis, and

Theodore Roosevelt were corporate monopolies, waste of natural resources,

working conditions in factories, banking reform, housing for che poor, and urban

congestion. Due in- pare to the immense popularity of Teddy Roosevelt, who ran

for reelection to the presidency in 1912 on a third-party progressive platform

(che so-called "Bull Moose parcy"), progressive reform proposals attracted strong

support from mainstream middle class Americans during che opening decades of

che century. 15

Two shocking disasters of human origin focused reform attention specifically

on che need for public intervention co protect lives from corporate misfeasance.

On March 25, 1911, 146 young women were killed in a fire that ravaged a 10- story building housing the Triangle Shirr Waist facrory in New York Cicy. The building lacked sprinklers and fire escapes, and its upper floors were beyond the

reach of fire fighting eguipment. The tragedy helped to advance support for

public laws ro promote fire safety and limics on che heights of buildings. 16

The sinking of Titanic on April 15, 1912, upon ramming an iceberg further

inflamed public opinion against corporate arrogance. Titanic on its maiden voy­

age was attempting to break the speed record across the North Atlantic despite

radio warnings of ice. The ship was vaunted ro be "unsinkable" by che White

Star line, the British shipping company that built her. White Star

had eguipped Titanic wich enough lifeboats and rafts to accommodate only

about 1100 persons, or less chan half of the number of individuals on board.

A total of 1635 persons died in the catastrophe and merely 711 survived

despite calm sea conditions and good visibility. Although legends of heroism

abounded, a higher percentage of first class passengers and crew members

survived than of lower class passengers. (White Scar's senior representative on

board was among the survivors although the captain was not.) This epic disaster

called widespread attention in industrialized nations co the hazards of allowing

private corporations excessive latitude where human life is at stake. It eventually

led to strengthened international reguirements for safety at sea, and paved the way for ocher forms of government oversight of hazardous acrivities.17 (See

Figure I-2.)

Decisions of the U S. Supreme Court in the early years of che twentieth cen­

tury d_isplayed a conspicuous, although not entirely consistent, evolution from

adherence to laissez-faire and Social Darwinism ("survival of the fittest") toward

grudging acceptance of the need for governmental intervention in the private

INTRODUCTION

FIGURE 1-2 Steamship Titanic in Southampton, England, before her tragic

voyage in April I 912. (Photo: The Titanic Historical Society, Indian

Orchard, Massachusetts)

economy to protecc rhe public health, safety, and welfare. The Court's 1905 deci­

sion in Lochne,· v. Neu, York 18-a dying gasp of che old order-rejected by a 5-4

vote a state law that regulated the hours of bakery employees as, in the Court's view, an unjustified interference with private property. But where private actions

posed a danger ro the public at large, progressive legal scholars urged the need for broader public powers co prohibit such harmful conduct. The year before

Lochner, Professor Ernst Freund of the University of Chicago Law School in his

seminal treatise, The Police Power, argued that common law nuisance, a doctrine

derived from medieval England, was ill-suited to managing the perils of modem

technology and urban society. In Freund's view, reasonable government regula­

tion of private accivity-the "police power"-was needed to safeguard the

public:

The common law of nuisance deals with nearly all the more seri­ ous and flagrant violations of the interests which the police power

protects, bur it deals with evils only after they have come into

existence, and it leaves the determination of what is evil very

largely ro the particular circumstance of each case. The police

power endeavors to prevent evil by checking the tendency toward

.,

6 INTRODUCTION

it and it seeks to place a margin of safety between that which is permirccd and that which is su.re co lead co injury or loss. This can be accomplished ro some excem by establishing positive stan­ dards and limlcacions which must be observed, although to step beyond them would noc necessarily create a nuisance at common law.19

Perhaps swayed by Freund's rationale, the Supreme Court four years after Lochner upheld a Massachusetts law imposing height limits on new buildings in downtown Bostorr for reasons of fire safety.20 In 1915, it approved an ordinance of the city of Los Angeles that closed down existing brickyards in newly settled portions of rhe city as a public health measure.21

The evolution of judicial progressivism with respect to public intervention in the use of private land culminated in the 1926 decision in Ambler Realty v. Vil­ lage of Euclid, 22 which upheld the practice of urban land use zoning (since referred to by planners as "Euclidean zoning"). The First National Conference on City Planning and Congestion in 1909 had aroused interest in planning and zon­ ing among urban reformers . In 1916, the first comprehensive zoning law was adopted by New York City; a decade lacer it had spread to several hundred cities.23 Coincidentally, the 1920 Census recorded more urban than rural resi­ dents for the first rime in the nation's history. The majority opinion in Euclid acknowledged that recent urbanization of the nation called for fresh thinking about the permissible balance of private and public rights under the Constitu­ tion: "Building laws are of modern origin. They began in this country about 25 years ago. Until recent years, urban life was comparatively simple; but with the great increase and concentration of population, problems have developed ... which require ... additional restrictions in respect of the use and occupation of private lands in urban communities. Regulations, the wisdom, necessity and validity of which as applied to existing conditions, are so apparent that they are now uniformly sustained under the complex conditions of our day .... "24 (See Chapter 5).

From the 1920s onward, Euclidean zoning was widely employed to discour­ age "discordant" patterns of urban land use-to keep apartment buildings out of single family neighborhoods or adult bookstores away from elementary schools. Bur ironically it was rarely used to restrict building in areas vulnerable to natural hazards. While the nation spent huge sums to store, divert, and chan­ nelize floodwaters, land use regulations were seldom used co limit new develop­ ment in areas of flood risk. Federal flood control projects in fact often made mat­ ters worse by providing a false sense of security that attracted new development to floodplains. Floods exceeding the design limits of projects inflicted greater annualized damage than would have occurred in the absence of the project. 25

Until 1950, however, the federal government assumed no responsibility for the

INTRODUCTION 7

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FIGURE 1-3 Hartford, Connecticut, during the flood of March 1936. (Photo: Army Corps of Engineers)

personal and economic welfare of flood v1ct1ms, even when their plight was attributable to governmental assurances regarding the reliability of flood control projects.

Nor did Congress perceive any need for governmental restrictions on new encroachments in floodplains (or other areas of natural hazard for that matter). In 1955, Hoyt and Langbein observed that "Flood zoning, like almost all that is virtuous, has great verbal support, but almost nothing has been done about it. A few local governments have restricted the use of low-lying lands, but not enough for us to point to any substantial amount of experience, or any great degree of progress."26 (See Figure 1-3.)

The concept of f1Q9dplain management through local land use planning zon­ ing would finally be embraced by Congress in the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968, but it remains controversial to the present rime. The ghost of Adam Smith still haunts efforts at all levels of government to deter private investment in hazardous locations. However, as the costs of improvident land use decisions have proliferated, the nation's willingness to underwrite a substantial portion of those costs has been radically transformed by Congress and an increasingly com­ pliant White House.

,

8 INTROOUCTION

NOTES

l. "Roger A. Pielke,Jc. (1997). ,rNomutlized Hurcicane Damages in che Un,ced Scares: 1925-1995." (Draft nrcide submirred ro \Vc:,tbu11nd Forica.11111g). Pielke uses a combin11- tion of inflation, wealth, and housing dens,ry changes to normalize damage corals.

Z. Peter J. M11y (1985). Rtcovtring from CataJfi·ophes: Feder,,/ Disamr Rilief Policy and Politic1. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 20.

3. Sciemifir Amtric,m (1888). "Moving the Brighton Beach Hore!" (April 14): 1-2; Rui:herford H. Plarr and och= (1992). Coastal Erosion: Has Retreat Sounded? Program on Environmem and Behavior Monograph No. 53. B oulder: Inscicure of Behavioral Science, Universiry of Colorodo, x,

4. National Research Council (1987). Responding to Changes in Sea Level. Washingron, D.C.: National Academy Press, 82-83.

5. Marcin Reuss (1991). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Office of History, Personal Communicacion.

6. William Bronson (1959/1989). The Earth Shook, The Sky 811rned. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 100-104.

7. William G. Hoye and Walcer B. langbein (1955). Floods. Princeton: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 263.

8. Pere Daniel (1977). Deep'n As It Come: The 1927 Mi,si1sipjJi River Flood. New York: Oxford University Press, 10.

9. Hoyt and Langbein, note 7, 262-263. 10. David Alexander (1993). Natural Disa1tm. New York: Chapman and Hall, 342. 11. Ibid. 12. Adam Smich (1776/1937). The Wealth o/Natiuns. New York: Modern Library, ,j23_ 13. David G. McCullough (1968). Thejohnstuu?z Flood. New York: Simon and Schus­

ter. McCullough reports that Johnstown received an immen se outpouring of donated money, food, and building materials from around che Unired Stares and abroad.

14. Bronson, noce 6, 174. 15. Rtehord 1-Iofscader ( 1955). The Age uf Refonn. New York: Knopf. 16. Seymour Toll (1969). Zonul /\m,-ri((t11, Ntw York: Grossmnn Publishers, 26. 17. Wyt1n Craig Wade O 979). Tiw11ir: End of rhu DrM/11. New York: Penguin. 18. 198 U.S. 45 (l905). 19. Ernst Freund (1904). The Police Power: Public Policy and Constitutional Law.

Chicago: Callaghan. 20. Welch v. Swasey 214 U.S. 91 (1909). 21. Hadachek v. Seba.rtian 239 U.S. 304 (1915). 22. 272 U.S. 365 (I 926). 23. Rutherford H. PlaH (1996). Land Use and Society: Geography, Law, and Public

Policy. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, Ch. 7. 24. 272 U.S., 386-387. 25. Gilberr F. White (1960/1986). "Strategic Aspens of Urban Floodplain Occu­

pance," in Geog,·aphy, Re1u11rw, and Environmmt Vol. 2 (eds. Robert W. Kaces and Ian Bur­ ton). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 84-96.

26. Hoye and Langbein, noce 7, 95.

PART I

FEDERALIZING DISASTERS:

FROM COMPASSION TO ENTITLEMENT

The Federal Disaster Relief Act of 1950 marked the beginning of a half-century of federal laws, programs, and policies intended ro soften the financial and social impacts of natural disasters on ·the American people and their communities. Chapter 1 traces the evolution of such federal initiatives in terms of purpose (e.g., individual relief, community reconstruction, hazard mitigation) and mea_ns (e.g., disaster assistance grants, subsidized disaster loans, federal insurance pro­ grams, technical assistance). The chapter concludes with the problem-widely raised by disaster policy critiques since the mid- l 990s-of "moral hazard," namely, to what extent does the likelihood of generous federal assistance serve to diminish the natural caution that individuals, communities, and businesses might otherwise exercise in adjusting to natural hazards in their investment and locational decisions? At what point does compassion lead co "codependency" whereby potential disaster victims and their federal protectors become locked into a repetitive cycle· of loss, compensarion, reconstruction, and new losses'

The spatial incidence of disasters, and of disaster a�siscance, is by no means uniform. Some places-notably coastal California, the Gulf Coast, and parts of the Mississippi River Valley-seem co be more disasrer-prone and therefore receive greater allocations of federal assistance than "safer" places. Federal disas­ ter programs are so diverse in form and function that mapping their collective spatial impact would be a daunting rask indeed. However, Chapter 2 examines