ABSTRACT
Prior to World War II, reactive disaster relief and response generally con-stituted the primary approach to emergencies and their consequences. The decentralized and largely uncoordinated activities described in the preceding chapters depended on voluntary private and local efforts to meet the immediate needs of disaster victims and communities. When the threats of that war ceased, academicians and policy makers recognized a wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge that could provide the basis for establishing policies to manage both the consequences of disasters and the conditions that might ease their impacts. Part of this process involved sorting out the complex responsibilities of federal and nonfederal entities before and after catastrophes.
