Power, Policy, and Disaster: The Political-Organizational Impact of a Major Flood

摘要

This study explores the long-term recovery period, power structure change, government reorganization, pre- and post-flood conflict, political opportunism, group mobilization, and the politics of hazard mitigation during the decade following a major flood caused by Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972. The main objective of the study is to examine the relationship between the disaster and long-term political-organizational changes in the structure of government and the distribution of power. A related objective is to examine the relationship between political change and flood mitigation policy change. The politics of securing and distributing recovery resources is explored, as well as the allied issue of power structure change in the communities affected. On the former point, the disaster is found to have generated a high degree of conflict at the local, state, and federal levels over the amount and distribution of recovery aid. On the latter, newfound citizens groups emerged as a third center of power in the community's previously bifurcated power structure. Disaster is thus examined as an essentially political event with long-term political consequences.