Economics of Emergencies: North Carolina, Civil Defense, and the Cold War, 1940 -- 196

Civil defense in the early Cold War years resulted from a perceived security threat to the American homeland. But whereas Americans remained skeptical of the ability to defend against nuclear attack, the assignment of disaster relief responsibility to civil defense provided a new avenue along which federal "defense" funds would flow. North Carolina's civil defense history broadly mirrors the changes and evolution in the federal program but differs noticeably in how civil defense was implemented in communities more concerned with natural disasters than nuclear attack. State civil defense efforts served not just as a tool to secure federal money for infrastructure improvement, but also as a way to make North Carolina a safer place for business investment. By orienting the state's civil defense program and policies toward planning for and responding to natural disasters, state leaders sought to minimize the damage such disasters could have on efforts to promote economic development. Federal civil defense funds essentially helped North Carolina develop an emergency management and response apparatus that reassured businessmen wanting to invest in new ventures that the state could effectively protect such investments.;Under the administration of Governor Luther H. Hodges, North Carolina embarked on a program of disaster relief which in time placed the state at the forefront of emergency preparedness. From 1953 and 1955, two severe droughts and four successive hurricanes imperiled the state's agricultural, textile, and coastal tourism industries, inflicting well over $300 million in total damages. These disasters instigated a noticeable shift toward the use of civil defense resources to alleviate the effects of natural disasters in the state and mitigate economic losses for current and future industry. Hodges employed civil defense resources to guide the rebuilding and future economic development of the state's coastal areas and mitigate against future hurricane hazards. This state effort secured millions in federal disaster relief and civil defense funds to protect both economic development and coastal tourism in the eastern counties.;North Carolina's civil defense legacy from the Cold War is best described as a catalyst. Civil defense almost never served as the outright reagent for economic or policy development in the state. Rather, civil defense resources permitted Hodges and succeeding governors to secure the funding or political support necessary to protect existing and promote future economic development in the state. The refutation of nuclear civil defense did not coincide with a rejection of emergency preparedness. Work in response to natural disasters put federal investment in equipment and training for nuclear war into peacetime use and provided federal officials with a means to promote the necessity of civil defense. With natural disaster response as a responsibility of the state civil defense agency, government at all levels mined the modern security state for federal largesse to fund the creation of a capable emergency response apparatus exemplified in today's professional emergency management agencies.