Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kneeland, Timothy W

Titel

Agnes Makes Landfall

Ist Teil von

• Playing Politics with Natural Disaster, 2020

Ort / Verlag

Cornell University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter focuses on Hurricane Agnes, which struck the United States in June of 1972 and affected the lives of tens of thousands of people from Florida to New York. The thirty-two trillion gallons of water that fell on New York and Pennsylvania caused devastation that left buildings and homes in ruins and property damage estimated to be in the billions of dollars. The flood also left some people homeless and some without electrical power, telephones, fresh drinking water, or sewers. Many were isolated from the outside world as roads and bridges collapsed or buckled due to flooding. Survival was the goal of the communities during the first seventy-two hours of the disaster. Political and economic recovery became the focus of civic leaders in the weeks after, but the trauma of that summer also called for psychological healing. Mired in mud and misery, bereft of property and employment, the people of New York and Pennsylvania looked to their local, state, and federal governments for help and answers.