MARS - George Mason University

natural disasters may be increasing, the American death rates remain comparatively
low. 41
3. Federal Emergency Management Agency History
Even before this country became a nation, disasters forged its heritage. A
hurricane is credited with forcing the British troops to surrender in Yorktown at the end
of the Revolutionary War (Dyson 36). The first “federal disaster” was recognized in
1803 after a catastrophic fire in Portsmouth, New Hampshire 42
(Nicholson, Emergency
Response and Emergency Management Law 235). Throughout this time, Congress would
pass many emergency appropriations to provide federal support for individual calamities
and fires. It was not until the Flood Control Act of 1936 and the Disaster Relief Act of
1950 that the federal government played a consistent role in emergency management
(Mycoff 179).
Congressman Harold Hagen of Minnesota and Congressman William Lemke of
North Dakota can be credited with establishing the original comprehensive disaster relief
program, the Disaster Relief Act of 1950, Pub. L. 81-875 (Bourgin Ch. 1, p. 4). For the
first time, permanent and general legislation authorized American presidents to declare
41
Compare the 1994 Northridge Earthquake deaths of 57 (Cooper and Block 63) to the 1995 Kobe
Earthquake deaths of 6,500 (Wikipedia, “Great Hanshin earthquake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”).
42
The American Red Cross, founded by Clara Barton, became the nation’s first organization devoted to
disaster relief when it coordinated food and supplies after a forest fire in Michigan in 1881(Dyson 37).
Barton is credited with forcing the federal government to serve black as well as white victims for the first
time in the 1889 Galveston Storm and was terminated by the Red Cross after this (Brasch 86-87) .
30