November 24, 1969
Page 35468
THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE CAMILLE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, last week I joined with the junior Senator from Indiana (Mr. BAYH) in a letter to the senior Senator from West Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) in which we asked him, as chairman of the Committee on Public Works, to schedule hearings in Mississippi and in Washington on the inadequacy of the implementation of Federal disaster relief and the serious consequences of that inadequacy in Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Camille. I wrote a separate letter to the distinguished chairman in which I raised serious questions concerning the administration of disaster relief in Mississippi.
The chairman responded immediately and has announced that hearings will take place in Mississippi during the first week in January. This prompt decision on his part reflects his strong commitment to effective and just relief assistance to the victims of Hurricane Camille and other natural disasters.
Today, the American Friends Service Committee and the Southern Regional Council released a report entitled "In the Wake of Hurricane Camille: An Analysis of the Federal Response." The report is a well-researched discussion of the inadequacies of the Federal Government's performance since the tragic events of August 18. The report contains serious allegations of weakness and inequities in the administration of disaster relief, and I hope that the hearings to be held in January by the Committee on Public Works will thoroughly investigate these allegations.
I ask unanimous consent that the letters and the report to which I have referred be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the items were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
NOVEMBER 19, 1969.
Hon. JENNINGS RANDOLPH,
Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Works.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: We have received your recent memorandum suggesting the formation of a Special Subcommittee on Disaster Relief in the Public Works Committee. This is an excellent proposal, and we hope that you will appoint the Subcommittee at your earliest opportunity.
We also hope that the first series of hearings held by this Subcommittee will focus on some serious inadequacies in the implementation of Federal disaster relief and the acute consequences of those inadequacies in the several months since Hurricane Camille struck the Gulf Coast.
Several aspects of the implementation of Federal disaster relief deserve the immediate attention of the Special Subcommittee:
(1) There appears to be no national minimum standard of disaster relief by which the adequacy of Federal assistance can be measured.
(2) The level of Federal assistance to individuals is often determined by pre-disaster income levels. In many instances, the practice of the Small Business Administration has been that it will grant loans for the reconstruction of private homes only to people who can demonstrate an ability to repay and will not grant a loan if the home to be built exceeds the value of the homes which were destroyed. Such a policy is inconsistent with efforts to improve the living conditions in a disaster area.
(3) Although the Federal government is prepared to meet the immediate needs of physical reconstruction after a disaster, it often delegates the care of individuals to agencies such as the Red Cross and exercises little control over their performance. The Red Cross, which handles virtually all personal disaster relief, seems to regard its responsibilities as limited to aiding each family in accordance with its earlier circumstances, regardless of the artificial differentiation which that policy implies between the basic needs of the rich and the poor.
As you stated in your memorandum, the Senate conferees believed that there was significant unfinished business remaining from the consideration of this year's legislation. We hope that the hearings which we have suggested will provide an immediate opportunity for the consideration of those issues.
We know that you are as concerned as we are that Federal disaster relief activities be committed to the improvement of the lives of all the people in a disaster area.
Therefore, we hope that the Special Subcommittee which you have proposed will be formed as soon as possible, and that hearings regarding the problems which we have outlined in this letter will be its first order of business.
Sincerely,
BIRCH BAYH, EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
NOVEMBER 19, 1969.
Hon. JENNINGS RANDOLPH,
Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Works.
DEAR JENNINGs: Senator Birch Bayh and I have written you today in reference to your
recent memorandum to the members of the Committee on Public Works. We have strongly endorsed your proposal that a Special Subcommittee on Disaster Relief be created in the Committee, and we have requested that its first order of business be hearings on the adequacy of the implementation of Federal disaster relief in general and the consequences of that inadequacy in the wake of Hurricane Camille.
In addition to the general questions raised in our letter regarding the basic implementation policies of Federal disaster relief, I would like to call attention to some serious questions which have been raised relative to the relief activities in Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Camille:
(1) There are serious allegations that the administrators of the relief programs in Mississippi have been oblivious to the needs of the poor in the Gulf Coast area. There are also serious allegations that relief efforts have been distorted by discriminatory practices, to the detriment of residents in the area and in violation of prohibitions against such practices in the administration of Federal and Federally aided programs.
(2) There are allegations that the Governor's Emergency Committee is Mississippi, which has been delegated the administration of $50 to $60 million in Federal funds for disaster relief grants and loans does not have any relationship to units of government in the disaster area, is not representative of the residents of the area and has made little effort to determine the views of those residents.
(3) According to reports from the area, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has based its distribution of trailers for emergency housing in Mississippi on policies which seriously limit the access of the poor to the housing on equal terms. Although HUD has the authority to make all emergency housing rent-free, it requires the poor to pay up to 25 percent of their monthly income for rent. Furthermore, HUD has stipulated that applicants must own or obtain a one-year lease for a lot for the trailer, that utilities will be provided by the tenant, and that trailers will be assigned to family units only.
The foregoing allegations raise serious questions as to the effectiveness of the Federal disaster relief program in Mississippi. I hope they can be examined in any hearings which consider the general implementation of Federal disaster relief.
Sincerely,
EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
NOVEMBER 20, 1969.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE,
Hon. BIRCH BAYH.
DEAR ED AND BIRCH: Thank you for your letter of Wednesday, November 19, 1969 expressing your approval of my proposal to create a Special Subcommittee on Disaster Relief. I am fully in accord with your observations regarding the need for prompt action in connection with the unfinished disaster relief legislation pending before the Committee. It is necessary for us to fully examine the Federal effort in disaster relief work to insure that programs we have enacted in the past are bringing the proper kinds and levels of assistance to those who suffer catastrophic personal and business losses as result of natural disasters.
I believe that hearings in the field as well as in Washington will be vital to our understanding of how the Federal Agencies are responding to their responsibilities under the various statutes which have been enacted. This is so especially with respect to P.L. 91-79 which was approved in part because of the ravages of Camille.
Whether or not the Special Subcommittee is established, the Committee on Public Works will hold hearings on this subject in Mississippi probably during the week of January 5, 1970. I will ask that you, Birch, chair those hearings as you have chaired our Committee hearings on disaster relief in the past. Of course, Ed, any assistance which you can render in connection with these hearings will be appreciated.
With warmest personal regards, Truly,
JENNINGS RANDOLPH.
NOVEMBER 20, 1969.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE
DEAR ED: Thanks for your letter supplementing the joint communication from you and Senator Bayh. Since he will be responsible for conducting the Committee hearings on the subject of disaster relief and the Federal response to Camille, I am forwarding your letter to him so that it can be made part of his record for the forthcoming hearings, which I believe are very necessary and very important.
With warm personal regards, Truly,
JENNINGS RANDOLPH.
IN THE WAKE OF HURRICANE CAMILLE: AN ANALYSIS OF THE FEDERAL RESPONSE
(By the American Friends Service Committee, the Southern Regional Council)
THIS SURVEY: WHY?
Americans have a reputation for a warm and ready response to the victims of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. When such disasters strike, clothes, food and funds pour out to the suffering people from communities across the land.
The immediate response last August to the victims of vicious Hurricane Camille reflected those generous and humane qualities. Camille was a storm of unprecedented force, with winds that traveled 200 miles an hour and waves that reached over 30 feet. As she hit the Gulf Coast areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, she killed at least 250 people and brought immeasurable suffering and loss to hundreds of thousands more. There was a nationwide outpouring of material aid and offers of assistance to Camille's victims. Observers present in the immediate wake of the storm witnessed countless acts of heroism and service on the part of private citizens and public officials. The magnitude of the federal effort in reaction to the devastation of Camille was probably unprecedented.
Despite all this human concern and these vast resources, our national response to the victims of Camille was, and continues to be, sadly inadequate. There were serious inequities in the immediate relief of suffering and there are now serious weaknesses in the planning for long range reconstruction of the areas affected.
Why? Why, with the immediate concern, resources and open-handed response to need, should a coalition of Mississippi anti-poverty and civic action groups have to report one month after Camille struck that "many people on the Gulf Coast are still surviving in squalid conditions, doubling up in neighbor's houses which are damaged and which lack adequate sanitation facilities" and that for lack of adequate information about their rights many people were being victimized by unscrupulous land development speculators and contractors?
And why, one month later still, should the same group of local citizens have to telegraph the Red Cross about lack of adequate relief services for poor people?
Why should a team of private agency observers report that as of late September significant numbers of people in the nine or ten county area of Mississippi affected by the storm were still suffering from inadequate access to food or facilities where food could be prepared or stored; a lack of adequate transportation and communication; a serious lack of knowledge about where to go among the maze of private and public agencies purporting to help families and individuals and an excess of rumors regarding food, housing loans, and other forms of help – rumors which tended to deter people from finding solutions to their problems?
The American Friends Service Committee and the Southern Regional Council, with important assistance from staff of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and many individuals and organizations in Mississippi, searched for answers to these questions. The report which follows is a summary of our major findings and recommendations. It is our hope that a penetrating look at the response to Hurricane Camille may bring additional action now to meet continuing urgent needs and that it may also bring some further understanding of what lies behind the nation's inability to cope well with the consequences of such disasters.
Our release of this report is based on the expectation of enlightened responsiveness from those who control the resources needed to solve the real and painful problems found in the aftermath of a disaster such as Camille.
In the week following Hurricane Camille, we sent a lone observer, familiar with the area, on a trip across the Gulf Coast and into some of the inland towns. On the basis of his report, we queried federal officials as to the exact nature of their responsibilities and about the resources available for meeting some of the needs described. In mid-September, a team of four spent three weeks in the affected area – primarily in Mississippi, but also in neighboring states hit by the hurricane. They travelled 2500 miles, interviewed 250 people, including private citizens – rich and poor, black and white – public officials, community leaders, and organization representatives.
Their work was supplemented by a special effort in Washington, manned by two professionals, one loaned by the Washington Research Project. In October, one of the original Mississippi team members returned to the Gulf Coast so that our information and observations could be kept fresh.
Our focus has been on the response of government and those private agencies with which it shares responsibilities. The federal government is the major force in the nation's response to natural disasters. It has the capacity and responsibility to mobilize massive resources quickly. We studied the policies and organization behind the federal operations in relation to Hurricane Camille and we sought to isolate the factors responsible for continued and widespread dissatisfaction on the part of the victims of that hurricane.
The documentation of specific complaints in the crisis following such events as hurricanes is extremely difficult, but given the persistence and consistency of such complaints, and taking into account the unsolved problems of racial and economic exclusion in communities to which natural disasters often come, the probability of the basic validity of the complaints is high.
It is undeniable that the way society is organized to deal with critical community problems in normal situations will influence its style and capacity in dealing with a crisis, as a result of which the usual, unsolved and already critical problems are made worse. But for precisely this reason, disaster personnel might be expected to develop unusual sensitivity and new capacities to reach out to those who – already "stricken" in their normal lives by the man-made disasters of poverty and denial of rights and opportunity – suffer terribly when natural disaster strikes them also.
The on-going work of the AFSC and the SRC concerns the man-made disasters, those which result from man's inhumanity to man. Although the AFSC does have considerable experience in relief work abroad, the Committee and the SRC issue this report against a background of work designed to achieve social and economic justice in this country. We also carried on our explorations and wrote this report against a background of considerable experience over the past decade or more in the region hit by Hurricane Camille.
Most importantly, we conducted our investigations and have written this report out of a concern for the people caught in the misery of the aftermath of disaster. Such a concern does not exclude anyone – rich or poor, black or white. In Mississippi we found a tragic number of "new poor"' families who formerly had marginal or middle incomes, and who were suddenly made poor when their possessions were wiped out. Many may never recover their security.
Our concern with people does not deny the importance of rebuilding roads and bridges and businesses, for we know that people must travel to jobs, to schools, to welfare offices and hospitals, and we know there must be jobs again. But in Mississippi, we found inordinate concern with the "suffering of people, who needed and still need, sensitive help in putting the pieces of their lives together again."
And, finally, our concern for people leads us vigorously to support those Mississippi leaders who are insisting that the voices of the black and the poor be heard in the planning for building anew where Camille has destroyed. Indeed, the opportunity to build freshly, abandoning the old patterns of exclusion which have so hampered the development of the area, could be the one bright side to the horror of the aftermath of Camille.
THE GOALS OF FEDERAL DISASTER PROGRAMS: PHYSICAL RECONSTRUCTION AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY
For all practical purposes, the thrust of federal disaster aid is in the direction of physical reconstruction and economic recovery – necessary, but certainly insufficient aims of pubic policy. Though no one would minimize the importance of this kind of dealing "with things and not with people", it clearly leaves thousands of disaster victims exposed to misery from which they should be protected.
The Office of Emergency Preparedness.
Marshaling the nation's resources in response to a major natural disaster is primarily the function of a single federal agency, the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP), which is in the Executive Office of the President. Public Law 81-875, the Disaster Relief Act of 1966, and various executive orders assign OEP exclusive power to "plan and coordinate all Federal programs providing assistance to persons, business concerns, and entities suffering loss as the result of a major disaster" and "to direct any Federal agency to utilize its available personnel, equipment, supplies and facilities." OEP is also the agency which administers the President's disaster relief fund and the sole agency through which state governors request emergency disaster aid. As a measure of OEP's responsibility in the Camille disaster, government officials estimated in early November 1969 that Mississippi alone would receive between $50 and $60 million from all federal sources, including $6 million from the President's relief fund.
Despite the magnitude of problems caused by natural disasters, and especially those with the destructive fury of Camille, natural disaster relief is only a minor part of OEP'S responsibility.
The agency is principally assigned to prepare the nation for the consequences of armed military attack upon the civilian population. It is concerned with strategic materials stockpiling, establishment of emergency governments ("the national defense executive reserve"), civil defense coordination, public facilities reconstruction, economic stabilization, wartime censorship, and other programs needed for the nonmilitary preparation of a nation attacked.
Though its duties in natural disasters are described in the statutes cited above, its main responsibilities are detailed in the Defense Production Act of 1950, the Civil Defense Act of 1950, and implementing executive orders. It is now headed by a retired military official, Brigadier General George A. Lincoln.
OED's responsibility for civilian defense, with its emphasis on physical and structural preparedness, significantly colors its approach to natural disasters. The agency views its prime responsibilities in natural calamities to be those providing for physical reconstruction of public facilities, debris clearance, and aid to governments. This is made explicit in OED's "Federal Disaster Handbook for Government Officials." Here, OEP indicates that individual needs will be met primarily by the American National Red Cross, while explaining that "Federal agencies deal primarily with States and local governments. . . . " To a limited degree this approach is understandable because these obligations are most explicitly defined in the law (P.L. 81-875).
Nevertheless, the general leadership responsibilities of OEP are essential to a balanced federal approach to disaster relief and recovery which takes into account both human and physical dilemmas. To date, however, the agency has severely circumscribed its own activities under its general leadership mandate: it is geared to deal with objects and not people, governments and not individuals, systems and not persons. In an interview with our staff, Mr. George Hastings, specially assigned disaster chief for the Camille area on the Gulf Coast, summarized this view when he stated, "We deal with things and not with people."
The Governor's Emergency Council
The primary State body in Mississippi concerned with recovery from Camille is the Governor's Emergency Council. It suffers from another serious shortcoming, an overriding emphasis on economic recovery. The Council was created by Governor John Bell Williams on September 6, 1969 "to make an immediate determination of all factors that relate to the long range development of the affected area'" to explore all avenues of assistance, and "to recommend a comprehensive plan for the accomplishment of the maximum long range development of the area's recreational, cultural, and economic life."
The Council is supported by a $495,000 grant from the Economic Development Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Local matching requirements have been waived. Its ten members were appointed by the Governor and are all white and all bankers, lawyers, or businessmen. Only three members live on the Gulf Coast. One is a banker, one a boat and barge company owner, and one a real estate man. With one major exception, the Council has not been involved in immediate, human needs on the coast and other hard-hit areas. It has instead concentrated on such development items as the creation of a uniform building code for the coast communities. (The ultimate objective appears to be the creation of a single metropolitan government along the coast and the construction of a recreational and resort area similar to Miami Beach, Florida.) Nevertheless, disregarding the all-white, non-representative, single-interest character of the Council, the President on September 16 ordered all federal agencies giving disaster aid to Mississippi to "coordinate through" this body.
NEGLECTED HUMAN ASPECTS OF RECOVERY IN FEDERAL DISASTER PROGRAMS
The failure of OEP to meet its leadership responsibilities in the area of individual human care and the preoccupation of the Emergency Council with economic recovery, has left a vacuum into which rumor, insensitivity, confusion and misdirection have rushed. There is no government wide plan by which the dimensions of human need are measured after a natural catastrophe occurs. In addition, there are no apparent standards by which OEP can gauge the adequacy of services provided by other federal agencies.
Outreach and Communication.
In the aftermath of Camille, there was systematic analysis of destruction of public facilities, but no comparable affirmative federal action to measure accurately the extent of human suffering and disruption. For example, OEP might have taken advantage of the grassroots outreach potential of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in assessing human needs. Furthermore, OEP apparently ignored OEO's recommendations concerning human need submitted less than three weeks after the hurricane.
For the most part, human beings who had been physically and mentally disoriented by the awesomeness of a violent storm were required to come to federal offices and describe the extent of their own plight. The locations of these loan and aid dispensing offices were not prominently indicated nor sufficiently advertised. Policy guidelines regarding available assistance were not laid down quickly nor made public in clear and understandable terms until, as we point out later, more than two months after the hurricane struck. And even then no affirmative effort was made to put the information in the hands of the people whom they might especially concern.
Informational flyers were not distributed widely; sound trucks did not travel the back roads nor reach the trailer camps; outreach workers were not extensively employed to seek out those who might need assistance.
This is certainly an ineffective way for the government to comprehend the extent to which a natural disaster has caused hunger, homelessness, mental and physical illness, confusion, and unemployment in a large geographic area serviced by relatively few emergency aid offices. It is difficult to understand why an official agency is willing affirmatively to take steps to measure the extent of physical loss, yet is reluctant to do so for human loss. The remainder of this section describes specific areas in which there has been failure to concentrate on human needs.
HUD and emergency housing
Our experience during the Camille disaster has been that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been highly insensitive to human problems. We can only describe the involvement of this agency in disaster relief as "reluctant."
When the hurricane struck, HUD was unprepared to meet its responsibility to provide emergency temporary housing for storm victims. When the need for emergency housing became apparent, HUD acted quickly to arrange for private manufacture and distribution of mobile homes, but its management of the program has led to great confusion and often public unwillingness to apply for the benefits. In Mississippi alone there were about 4,000 homes destroyed and 12,000 which received major damage, yet applications have never exceeded one third of this total. A general policy outlining the terms of tenancy (whether you have to pay rent, how much you pay, who pays what for utilities and hook-up, how long you can stay, etc.) was not released until October 17, two months after the storm struck. For 60 days after Camille swept the area, those assigned trailers signed a lease which left blank the spaces dealing with amount, if any, of rent.
Rumors spread rapidly in this information void. One couple, for example, told our field staff they would not apply because they heard they would have to pay $85 per month rent plus $150 for utility hook-up. Though many such rumors were not based on fact, the confusion of local HUD representatives in the absence of clear guidance from Washington only heightened speculation.
Moreover, HUD originally intended to stop receiving applications for housing by October 10 – before their explanatory policy came out – and when we asked HUD officials to extend this deadline because of the local misunderstandings about the program, they responded that they were "unsympathetic" to anyone who had failed to apply. (The deadline was extended 30 days due to last-minute interventions by Senators Hugh Scott, Charles Percy, and Edward Brooke.)
In addition, the tenancy agreement finally announced by HUD allowed for only 90 days free rent instead of the one year permitted by law; no special attempts were made to secure trailers for off-shore counties hit hard by the storm (by late October, only 16 trailers had been delivered to these counties); and, in general, the delivery of trailers has been seriously behind schedule.
CONSUMER PROTECTION
The general area of consumer protection is also one where the absence of government aid has led to aggravated suffering by victims. Perhaps the most widespread and dramatic example has been in the settling of insurance claims on destroyed homes and property. Private insurance companies dispatched approximately 600 extra insurance adjusters to the hurricane area to settle claims as quickly as possible. In many cases, these claims are being settled for 10 %-30 % of the face value of the insurance contracts, a situation which takes advantage of the victim's desperate need for a short case. Moreover, many claims have been either denied or reduced on the contention of the insurance firms that damages have been caused by water (not covered by homeowner policies) and not by wind. For example, our team was told by one man that the roof of his house had been blown off and the interior of his house had then been flooded by rain; he got $1,000 for his roof.
The general insurance situation has caused great public complaint, yet there has been no evidence of government presence to protect consumers. It is especially important because the devastation of the storm has, in effect, created a class of "new poor"' people in marginal or middle income circumstances before the storm who suffered so much economically that they are heavily dependent on whatever insurance coverage they had for recovery. The failure of state insurance regulatory officials to protect victims has caused a local scandal and has led to a county grand jury indictment of the state insurance commissioner. (One local employee of the state agency reported to our staff that it was their job to "pacify the people.")
What is distressing in these circumstances is that information could be developed to help hurricane victims if there was interest to do so. The Weather Bureau, for example, hired one of the world's leading atmospheric meteorologists to analyze the nature of the storm immediately after it hit. Our staff interviewed him while he was preparing his report. He was impressed with what he called "the tornado-like" ferocity of the storm, and indicated that there was clearly widespread and heavy wind damage in all areas except those immediately adjacent to the shoreline. Information like this could be extremely beneficial to storm victims were someone in the federal (or state) government watching out for their interests .
CLASS AND CARE
An argument is made by some advocates of the present federal disaster policy that disasters usually hit middle-income people harder than the poor. This is unfounded. Undoubtedly, a family with considerable income and substantial real and personal property is more likely to suffer a greater dollar loss than a poor family in the same disaster area. But actual dollar loss tells very little about the hardship which a disaster brings to an individual family. Much more important is the human need which the losses formerly fulfilled. For example, the poor family who loses a $5,000 house is likely to suffer more than a family who loses a $30,000 house. Though neither family has a place to live, the poor family will in all likelihood be less able to recover. In most cases, the wealthier family will have supplemental assets, including insurance, to help it to full recovery. Humane systems of disaster aid would take into account actual need and not only dollar losses.
The demographic characteristics of the Mississippi coast counties, and especially those more inland, mark them unmistakenly as poor, significantly black, and undereducated. (See appendix.) Yet, the federal government and private agencies to which it has delegated disaster responsibilities have dispensed assistance as if they were dealing with wealthy suburbs.
Federal aid to individuals
OEP's Disaster Handbook indicates that individuals should get assistance from either private agencies or one of the following federal agencies which give loans: the Small Business Administration, Farmers Home Administration, Federal Housing Administration, and Veterans Administration. Federal disaster aid, therefore, with the exception of emergency housing, is basically limited to loans and rests substantially upon the ability of individuals to establish credit, or the ability to repay. For people who are poor – who are unemployed or seasonal workers, who have very low incomes when they get a chance to work, who rarely have collateral to back a loan and who cannot promise regular payments – this system is cruel.
Though loans fairly provide aid on a repayment basis to those who can meet the economic standards required, they arbitrarily discriminate against those who are not in the right economic class. Moreover, loans are not generally given to any person if, as a result, his real property will be worth more than before the disaster. Clearly, such a policy inevitably works against those whose possessions before a disaster were worth very little, e.g., a person living in a wood frame, two room home with minimum furniture could not qualify. SBA does grant loans to persons to build homes of increased value if they lived in homes which failed to meet minimum housing code levels. The loans can be used to construct homes to meet these minimums. Generally, however, unincorporated areas have no such codes.
In the provision of emergency housing, the law allows free rent for a year or less (HUD, as we noted earlier, chose a limit of 90 days) and, thereafter, a rent and utilities payment not to exceed 25% of a family's income. This admirable formula, however, can have unfair effects. In Camille, for example, fees have been established for emergency trailers according to their size, up to a maximum of $55 per month for a three bedroom unit. Because there are no income restrictions, rightly, on trailer tenants, this fee may be as much as 25% for some families and considerably less percent for those with greater incomes. In fact, a family with an annual income below $3000 would quickly reach the 25% limit. In disaster situations, when necessities have been destroyed or washed away and there are unusual expenses, this government-regulated cost can become unfairly burdensome to the poor.
Finally, the principal non-monetary federal aid available to disaster victims is food, through participation in one of the Department of Agriculture's food stamp or commodities distribution programs. The limitations of these programs have been documented elsewhere and it is not our intention to do so here.
During September, the Red Cross paid the entry fee for persons wishing to participate in the food stamp program in Harrison County. Though exact figures were not available at this writing, local food officials reported that when this Red Cross program stopped at the end of the month participation rates dropped markedly.
Our observation of the operation of federal aid programs in the aftermath of Camille leads us to conclude that it is difficult for poor people to obtain disaster relief from such sources.
THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS
How, then, are individuals cared for in a natural disaster? Theoretically, state and local officials should handle a considerable portion of the assistance. Practically, however, their location within the devastated area makes them victims as well, and especially if local employees live in the disaster area. Moreover, in poor states such as Mississippi, there is little likelihood that these agencies can respond effectively to the huge demands of an emergency. Harrison County, for example, has a population of about 120,000 and has no full-time public health officer. In these situations, the federal responsibility – and especially that of OEP – necessarily increases.
OEP has in effect delegated the bulk of its responsibilities for individual care to the American National Red Cross. The Red Cross is chartered by Congress to "carry on a system of national and international relief ... in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, flood, and other national calamities. . . " It is a quasi-public agency, supported entirely by voluntary contributions, but having close ties to the federal government in both purpose and operations.
The chairman and seven other members of the 50-member Board of Governors are appointed by the President of the United States. It is housed in a federally owned building, has its books audited by the Department of Defense, and is recognized in Public Law 81-875 as a conduit for federal agencies for releasing emergency supplies in disasters. The Red Cross also maintains a Statement of Understanding with the OEP to cover disaster functions, and it is through this formal agreement, last approved in May 1969, that OEP grants a preemptive role to the Red Cross for individual care in a disaster, covering such items as food and other consumable supplies, clothing, medicine, shelter, occupational rehabilitation, household furnishings, building and repair of homes. The Statement also provides that federal funds will not be used to pay state and local governments for expenses they incur carrying out functions which the Red Cross is able to perform. Coupled with statutory language (section 4 of the 1966 Disaster Relief Act) which provides for cooperation between federal agencies and the Red Cross, but not anything which will "limit or in any way affect" its operations, the Statement of Understanding essentially gives the Red Cross a free hand in providing individual disaster care without effective public oversight.
The Red Cross operates two related, but distinct, programs of disaster assistance. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster it concentrates on providing "mass care" which is dispensed through emergency offices manned predominantly by volunteers, and where victims are given medical care, e.g. inoculations, some clothing, food, etc. As the immediate needs are met, however, this part of the program phases out. Caseworkers then arrive to develop individual recovery assistance for victims and their families. Disaster aid applicants complete detailed forms which describe their assets, liabilities, and losses (The household furnishings loss list alone contains more than 90 items.) Caseworkers then determine how much each victim should get and the Red Cross issues a grant, or gift, to the victim.
By the beginning of November, 23,208 persons in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama had received grants. Though normally the average Red Cross grant is $720, local staff are empowered to give $7500 without headquarters approval, and large gifts are granted. The Red Cross Biloxi office stated that the average Camille grant for them has been about $1100.
The Red Cross grant program is unique because it does not require repayment. Because federal financial aid for disasters is limited to loans it is especially valuable. At first glance, therefore, it would appear uniquely suited to help all disaster victims, regardless of income. But theory has proved quite different from practice. Caseworkers are given a considerable amount of discretion in dispensing these grants, but generally are required to help applicants "resume their normal family life in the home and in the community." Just as for federal financial aid in disasters, there is no minimum standard of need by which the adequacy of aid can be measured, and because the organization attempts to bring victims back to their previous level of living – regardless of what it was – aid is dispensed unequally. Those who had more before the disaster will get more for recovery; those who had less will get less And many poor will be referred to public relief agencies in lieu of getting Red Cross assistance (Mississippi does not have a general relief program; you must be either blind disabled, aged, or a dependent child to gel state welfare aid).
Guidelines contained in the Red Cross Disaster Casework Procedure Manual indicate how this general approach to disaster aid is translated into operating terms.
Clothing: The Manual says, "Used clothing should be given only when the family's standards indicate it is appropriate." The Gulfport casework supervisor confirmed that this means if you've never had new clothing, you don't get any from the Red Cross (unless that's all there is). But if you are accustomed to new clothing, that's what you'll get.
Household furnishings. The Manual says, "Needs will vary according to the amount and quality of furnishings lost, and the economic level, size, and composition of the family. For example, the family that lost poor quality furnishings can be expected to resume its normal way of living with used or unpainted items."
Renters v. homeowners: The Manual says: "Rent. A family that has lost its shelter may be referred to a Red Cross operated shelter, or assistance may be provided by paying a maximum of one month's rent for a room, apartment, or home if the family does not have resources to pay for this expense." Payments to homeowners who have lost their shelter have no limit, are made to cover rebuilding costs, and can be for thousands of dollars worth of such costs.
The inequities which can result from this system of aid can be understood from the following examples (the first two were obtained by our field representatives from the aid applicants described).
A black man in Waveland followed a white applicant into a Red Cross center. Both men had the same size families, but the black man had a substantially lower income. The white man got $80 for food, the black $5 for the same period of time.
A young white couple on Point Cadet had their home destroyed. The husband's weekly income varied from $40 to $100. They were told they would receive an allowance to replace their furniture; they received $30 for groceries, $80 for clothes. They could not get money to rebuild their home, worth $4500, because "they would end up with more than they had before the storm."
A 70 year old lady from the same area with more than $3000 in savings received $10,000 to rebuild her $11,000 destroyed home.
The chairman of a consolidated citizens organization along the coast complained (in a telegram to the Red Cross) that a family with a $39,000 income received "a full bedroom outfit" while another family with a $3,000 income got a mattress.
According to the disaster chief of the national Red Cross, Mr. Robert Pierpont, the Red Cross is fully cognizant that it does not serve all income groups equally. He summarized the organization's relationship with its clientele by saying, "We're not dealing with the poor, we're dealing with Mr. and Mrs. Average America."
The result of this Red Cross policy is that an agency acting on behalf of the federal government has decided to interpret its Congressional charter in such a way that a disproportionate amount of its fixed disaster budget ($10 million is budgeted for disasters annually, without special contributions) goes to people who are not poor. Though it is not our purpose to suggest that any disaster program ought to be a substitute for a carefully defined, humane program, providing economic security for all people, it is clear that the net effect of this policy is to arbitrarily exclude a portion of the population from disaster solely because they are poor.
The disaster aid rationale
Both federal and private agencies therefore operate disaster assistance without any minimum standard of adequacy; they also disburse aid frequently according to the income or assets of the aid applicant. One can only conclude, therefore, that the general theory which guides the federal government in its disbursement of disaster aid is that no one should have, even temporarily, better living standards than they had before, even if they were poverty-stricken. In its own words, the Red Cross "considers only those needs that have been created or made worse by the disaster." Though certainly a reasonable sounding approach, the net result – coupled with no minimum standard and a graduated level of care – is inequality and inadequacy for many.
Special needs of the poor
Not only are the poor discriminated against in the general approach to the disbursement of financial aid, but their needs also go unmet in a number of special areas where they have particular concerns.
Legal aid. – Three days after Hurricane Camille hit Mississippi, negotiations began between the Mississippi Bar Association and the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) for an emergency grant to establish a legal aid program to help "low income people" struck by the storm. A six-month, $50,000 grant was approved even though the Mississippi Bar has long opposed strong legal aid on behalf of the poor and civil rights, and even though (in violation of 42 USC 2809) no attempt was made to coordinate the program with existing community action agencies, or make it meet the peculiar problems of the poor. Two full-time attorneys have been hired and "volunteers" work at $10 per hour. No limits of income are set for people wishing to receive legal aid services.
The president of the bar told our representatives that no advocacy actions would be taken, and that to a considerable extent the program was designed to keep out civil rights lawyers who might "start trouble." The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has collected six affidavits from black people who state they were refused aid.
The program concentrates primarily on those issues which are of benefit to families with assets in the form of insurance or real property: settlement of claims cases for homes and cars, repairs or improvements on property, problems of getting into and out of contracts. While there is a clear need for such aid to people of all economic levels, OEO funds should not be used to provide such aid for the non-poor.
Planning and adequate representation. – The future of the area hit by Camille depends mainly upon the Mississippi Emergency Council. As we indicated above, this Council is totally unrepresentative of both poor and black, indeed of any segment of Mississippi society but the business and banking community. In general, the Council has operated without public sessions or hearings to gather information from the populace about what the direction of the new development ought to be.
For more than two months after the storm the Council failed to meet with representatives of the black community. Then, when the body extended an invitation to various private agencies interested in its activities, including our organizations, local representatives asked that the Council membership be made more representative. That request was denied, though a return offer was made to allow three non-member black people to sit in regular Council meetings and participate when appropriate.
Even though the federal government granted $495,000 to the Council, a grant which even waived local contributions in cash or kind, the President's representative said, "The President has no control over the make-up of the Council." This is an excessively restricted view of federal responsbility, especially when the Council had to sign an assurance of compliance with title VI of the Civil Rights Act in order to receive the money.
In the future, the issue of adequate and fair community representation will become increasingly important as HUD approves money and proposals for community planning, low income housing, etc. The Workable Program for Community Improvements Handbook, for example, states:
A guiding principle of departmental policy is to insure that citizens have the opportunity to participate in policies and programs which affect their welfare. Therefore, the Workable Program requires ... that the community provides opportunities for citizens, including those who are poor and members of minority groups, to participate in all HUD-assisted programs for which a Workable Program is a requirement and in the community's plan to expand the supply of low and moderate income housing.
In view of the difficulties and shortcomings of HUD's performance in relation to community representation in the recent past, its future actions in this regard should be carefully observed.
Transportation. – A crucial problem for poor people, especially those in rural areas, is transportation. Lack of transportation after the storm – even where it was not present before the hurricane – has seriously hampered the effectiveness of relief work simply because many poor people have been unable to reach assistance centers. The OEO staff in Mississippi, for example, requested and received approval for an emergency food proposal which was geared primarily to obtain temporary transportation for poor people to reach food distribution centers. The federal government, aside from OEO, has been oblivious to this problem. The Department of Transportation's mass transit office has never made a survey of transportation needs after the storm and its one representative was present at the coast because a local Congressman wished assistance in extending a government contract for a local firm.
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND FEDERAL DISASTER PROGRAMS
There is a popular myth during disasters that the exigencies of natural calamities significantly reduce or entirely eliminate the normal hostilities and differences between races. Mississippi is, unfortunately, a perfect testing ground for this thesis, and from the beginning it has proved false.
On one hand, there is little doubt that some federal officials and relief agencies have at least been aware that racial discrimination is possible during emergencies, e.g. OEP was prompt to investigate a complaint of discrimination after Camille, and the Red Cross has made some efforts to bring in black workers to the disaster area. Nevertheless, through both actions and inactions the federal government has indicated there is little national sensitivity to the problems of race, even during a calamity. Indeed, in some instances federal agencies and officials appear to be supporting discrimination.
One of the first, and most important examples, which we have discussed above, was the President's decision to recognize the all-white, unrepresentative Mississippi Governor's Emergency Council as the coordinator of federal aid. This act has become particularly repulsive to local black citizens because the White House acted ten days after the membership of the Council was named.
A number of other issues, however, specifically illustrate the failure of federal agencies to take steps to assure equal opportunity.
The Small Business Administration appears to be approving loans in a discriminatory manner. In the month following the hurricane (September) SBA approved 617 disaster loans. All but 21 (3%) went to whites. In addition, the average white loan was $8,919 and the average black loan was $3,797. Finally, 99% of the total dollars in loans approved by SBA have been for whites.
In general, federal agency responsibilities under title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, (which prohibits discriminatory use of Federal funds) are overseen by the Department of Justice. In this disaster situation, where at least $50 million is expected to flow to a state with a long history of racial problems, Justice has confined its actions to general conversations with OEP about title VI.
The ability of the Federal Government to disburse school aid according to the Constitutionally- approved requirements of title VI has been compromised. In late August an HEW official stated that school districts which were segregated in violation of title VI would not get aid (six districts in disaster counties are not in compliance). The Vice President publicly condemned this statement on more than one occasion, calling it at one point a "gratuitous determination by a minor official, repugnant as an example of overbearing bureaucracy. . . " The Vice President's position has placed great pressure on HEW's civil rights staff to accept less than adequate compliance proposals in order to make districts which now violate the law eligible for aid.
The bulk of physical clean-up work after Camille was done by private contractors working for the Corps of Engineers. No attempts were made by the Corps to assure nondiscrimination in hiring, even though they are required to do so by Executive Order 11746.
The federal fair housing statute states that "all executive departments and agencies shall administer their programs and activities relating to housing and urban development in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes" of the law. HUD has principal responsibility for administering this act for its own activities and for other agencies. It has taken virtually no action under this language since its passage. This will directly affect the future development of the Gulf Coast.
Generally, therefore, the black citizens of Mississippi, who must suffer gross indignities every normal day, have had to withstand additional violations of law and spirit during this extreme situation. Contrary to the desires of those who felt that Camille might bring new hope through new building, there is every reason to fear that discrimination will exist as before, but cloaked in a mantle of modernity.
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The response of the Federal Government and of quasi-public agencies to the disaster caused by hurricane Camille along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi was large. Private agencies also provided extensive immediate help. But to a great extent the federal influence was characterized by its size rather than by its sensitivity. The Federal Government appears to treat a natural disaster as it would a military disaster . . large numbers of troops are rapidly assigned to remove bodies and clean up debris, and are withdrawn as soon as possible. Though individuals have acted with great understanding in countless cases, our investigations show that in response to hurricane Camille:
1. The Federal Government devoted its primary attention to public facilities damaged or destroyed by a natural disaster and relegated the care of individuals to others. There are ample statistics on the destruction of bridges, highways, sewers and public buildings but far less detail about the destruction of homes and personal possessions. There is insufficient information about the degree to which people are hungry, sick, homeless or in need of special care.
2. The Federal Government has not recognized by its actions the need for imaginative outreach to people both numbed by disaster and cut off from normal channels of communication. Clear information regarding services available, location of sources of aid and the terms of such aid was not taken to people, and as a result rumors were rife and inhibited utilization of such services.
3. Aid was not dispensed equitably to all people. There is no minimum standard of need by which the adequacy of disaster care is measured. Aid was frequently disbursed on a graduated scale of income; if you had more, you got more; if you had less, you got less. In the case of the American National Red Cross, this is official policy.
4. There has been no coordinated program to protect consumers from exploitation and fraud. Many "new poor" fortunate enough to have had insurance policies were forced to settle for a fraction of their claims. Many property owners were at the mercy of land speculators. Information about the nature of the hurricane which would have helped in these situations was not made available to victims.
5. The special needs of the poor have not been affirmatively identified and met. Often alienated from the community at large the poor are especially ill-prepared to cope with a disaster. Under normal circumstances the poor are least able to qualify for loans, and loans are the main category of recovery aid. Many of the poor live in isolated areas and aid was slow to reach them. The poor have not been involved in identifying needed emergency services nor in planning for the future, thus adding to frustration and alienation.
6. The Federal Government has taken little or no action to combat racial exclusion and discrimination in this disaster situation, and in some instances is contributing to the problem. The Department of Justice has confined its actions to conversations with OEP about title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Other departments of the Federal Government have failed to take affirmative action to ensure non-discrimination. Only a tiny percentage of SBA loans have gone to black people. Most importantly, the President has sanctioned the exclusion of the poor and the black from the long range planning process by designating the all-white Governor's Emergency Council as the official body through which all federal programs for reconstruction must be coordinated.
The above findings lead the American Friends Service Committee and the Southern Regional Council to make the following recommendations, some of which are designed to help meet immediate continuing needs in the wake of hurricane Camille and others of which are directed toward the nature of the federal response to possible future disasters.
1. We Recommend that the Federal Government and its agencies work only through state or local bodies which affirmatively embody non-discriminatory policies and are fully representative of all segments of the affected area. If such a state or local body cannot be found or speedily created, the Federal Government should bypass non-complying agencies and itself directly administer federally funded or assisted programs for recovery and reconstruction, and that inasmuch as the Governor's Emergency Council of Mississippi is highly unrepresentative of the people of that state, the President immediately revoke his recognition of that Council as the coordinating agency through which federal programs of recovery and reconstruction reach Mississippi.
2. We Recommended that the President should allocate sufficient portions of his disaster relief fund to meet the emergency food, unemployment and housing needs still existant on the Gulf Coast until such time as, at his request, Congress appropriates necessary funds for the implementation of the goals of the Disaster Act of 1969 (PL 91-79).
3. We Recommend that the Department of Housing and Urban Development should rescind its order establishing charges for emergency housing and trailers, provide for free occupancy of trailers for one year; and extend its cut-off date for applications for housing assistance for as long as the disaster period is officially recognized by the Office of Emergency Preparedness.
4. We Recommend that the Office of Economic Opportunity should establish and fund a special legal aid and ombudsman program for the Gulf Coast area, this program to be administered by a board representative of the total Gulf community including those the program will serve, and to continue until the disaster period is officially terminated by the Office of Emergency Preparedness.
5. We Recommend that the Department of Agriculture should make available commodities, free food stamps and free school lunches for needy disaster victims at least as long as the disaster period is officially recognized by the Office of Emergency Preparedness.
6. We Recommend that appropriate agencies should immediately initiate and fund adequate job training and employment programs to provide income and security for those dislocated by hurricane Camille.
7. We Recommend that Congress should convene an oversight investigation into the administration and direction of the federal response to the recent hurricane, Camille, with particular emphasis upon the Federal Government's preparation for, and ability to handle, the individual human consequences of natural disasters.
8. We Recommend that there be developed "Disaster Guidelines" which shall be binding on the Executive Office of the President and all federally supported, assisted or chartered agencies, and which should include the following among its provisions.
Uniform minimum levels for aid, equally applicable to all people regardless of their predisaster economic status, shall be established to provide such basic necessities as food, shelter and medical needs for as long as is needed;
Special needs unmet by this minimum standard shall be considered in request of individuals and families;
All federal disaster programs shall adhere to the intent and provisions of federal civil rights laws, including sending civil rights staff to the scene immediately;
The total community affected, including the poor, shall be involved as soon as possible after a disaster in the planning and implementation of short and long-range recovery and reconstruction activities;
No agency shall terminate disaster aid without the concurrence of the overall coordinating agency.
9. Finally, we recommend that the Congress take appropriate steps to ensure that the agency designated to coordinate the federal response to natural disasters reflect in its policies, personnel and program an equal concern for the human and physical dimensions of disaster reconstruction; and that Congress consider whether, in the light of the primary defense responsibilities of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, OEP is the suitable agency to carry out such coordinating functions.