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Here are three ordinary men. They speak in ordinary words but in what they say they are profound and out of the ordinary implications for thousands of people in their communities. When Disaster Strikes. It all went exactly like an exercise that is a British civilian in 1940 a civil defender trained for months to meet anticipated dangers to cope with possible hazards to face a military menace that could only be guessed at. Now the test had become the real article. The phone Fiore of the London Blitz. What there was other towns do is their own lookout. But the word from Austin is get going. And that's what we're going to do. Now what do you say to a dry run. Make out like something big is head us and all of us do exactly what we do and it did. That's the mayor of a Texas town in 1051 a city official who took seriously the governor's directive to every mayor in his state to activate
a civil defense organization. You. Can't make that committee meeting this afternoon. A couple of things came up. Maybe next week. Sure thing by a bunch of complicated nonsense anyway. Who's going to drop a bomb on a place like this. People here are going to go for all that rigamarole. It's too high falutin for a town that's a member of the disaster preparedness committee in a middle sized American city. 1053 for this man is a damn and amusing fantasy all around him a typical American community is going its placid well-organized way. Who would ever dream that a win could blow it away. Radio television the University of Texas presents when disaster strikes
a series of programs designed to show how present day America. All over our nation. Social scientists are seeking special studies to find out how we as a people react to sudden widespread catastrophe. With the help of Dr. Harry the University of Texas and the nation for Mental Health we're going to share some of the things. When disaster strikes is produced and recorded by radio television. The University of Texas is under a grant from the educational television cooperation with the National Association of educational. Programs. Who is in charge here. Disaster sets no timetable. It promises no advance notice of its
approach. It does not exceed to our weaknesses. It does not countenance our delays catastrophes ultimatums are given in minutes given for keeps. In terms of injury and death destruction and chaos its demands are urgent and the questions the relentless questions begin in terms of crisis piled up on simultaneous crisis. Two hundred people are trapped under buildings with gas mains broken and water rising. Trucks and rescue vehicles through St.. Jacques. When we fly. That said
where are the answers. Let's ask Dr. Harry more professor of sociology at the University of Texas and director of a special disaster study which covered two years of research who does know the answers to the questions of crisis. Dr. Moore who's supposed to know them who is in charge what a disaster strikes. I have to say that sometimes unfortunately and nobody knows the answers to those questions it depends on whether the questions have been asked calmly and rationally before the crisis when there was still time and somebody took the trouble for realistic answers. Whether the questions are now being raised only on the urgency of the crisis itself. Well I'd say they're being posed for the first time in the desperate press of disaster itself. Then the stricken community is likely to find that time nobody is in charge and they find that nobody knows even who should be in
charge including the people who might be expected to assume authority. That's hard to believe isn't it. Yes it is. It's natural and far more reassuring to assume that the same forces of authority and control we have custom to rely on. Well I automatically take care of us when the sastra strikes. So you may be reluctant to take my wood that we can't depend on that. Well let's not take just my way. Let's take the words of a three man at the face of this program faced the British civil defense and it all went exactly like an exercise. Let's listen to the mayor of the Texas town. Now. What do you say to a dry run. Make out like something big is headed is that all of us do exactly what we do if it did. Now let's show once more what the members of the disaster preparedness committee in another city had to say. Bunch of complicated nonsense anyway. Civil defense ABC warfare.
Who's going to drop a bomb on a place like this. People here are going to go for all that rigamarole. It's too high falutin for a town this size. Here are three adn every man members of three different men at this one had prepared for a probable crisis. One had prepared for a possible crisis and one had prepared for no crisis at all. Let's see what the words of each implied for the fate of his community. When the crises came they did. Let's look back to September 1942 in England braced for a crisis. On September 7. An enemy general told his countrymen. This time. For the first time the first ever attack of many many that were
leaving 13000 dead 20000 seriously injured in the London region alone. To the site of every bomb fall in wartime London and 30000 fellow. There had to come and come quickly rescue parties to release the buried casualty workers to care for the injured wardens to point the way for both. There had to rally without delay ambulance drivers and litter bearers. Cars for the lesser ends are doctors and nurses and First Aid workers. But the utility repair could not wait until Fay stayed was down and Faye stayed did not tarry until the rescue away was finished. Everything comes at once and the disaster my chintzy every job is. It will not wait in a zation no quibble place and all along. When the heat and the noise in my sides turned over something frightful. All right.
There are people and there's a job to be done. They had those built in from the days of preparation when they asked for favors or threatening likelihood. When sound planning it specified what would need to be
done and by and conscientious training them. Had been. It's bound to be coming but when and what about West Texas town whose authorities had said to themselves in the summer of 1951 it could happen here. Well on May 11 1953 less than two years later it was a reality. For terrorists. Chester's package store on the big spring highway from Webster. Something big was on its way. Captain Wright Buckner of the Texas State Highway Patrol had sent four patrol men into squad cars racing to the suburbs of San Angelo to find out what that way
was. And now those in charge of public safety moved immediately to ensure that safety with the communications warning system planned for the trial red alert from the Highway Patrol headquarters to the local scene and get somebody from the newspaper office to those who had to know. The tornado did not mislike swept across the residential area demolishing or severely damaging every building in a pathway 1 1/2 miles wide and three miles long. Ten minutes
later to those picking themselves up out of the wreckage it was plain that something big hit here. Decides to practice for the imaginary crisis of war dictated quick and efficient procedures in this weather bred crisis of peace time at the heavily damaged lakeview school. The children assembled in the auditorium so cars can take them to the community to the family reunion center. Nope not one of them seriously hurt or wonder. But I'll tell you if it hadn't been for that warning. If these folks hadn't had that warning and if these folks hadn't been trained to safety we'd have had three maybe four hundred injured or killed. Still the emergencies were many what we called home and plenty. Cooking oil not a loaf of bread not us clothes but just what we stood up in and then sell through from the right.
But those in charge moved swiftly taking their cues in large part from the trial red alert troops doctors nurses and ambulances from Goodfellow Air Force Base were on hand soon after the news was relayed there at 2:35 at 3:15 the local unit of the National Guard arrived in the disaster area. Five minutes later its commander at the request of the San Angelo mayor. You couldn't troll of all operations in the stricken area. Let's see what all this meant for the stricken community of Lakeview with two hundred and eighty of its homes demolished 11 of its people dead 256 injured hundreds. With the crisis less than on a specified chain of command had been established where there was a job to be done. A recognized authority was in control then dictate what that job was and who was to do it. The fruits of this organisation and dispatch were not unlike in themselves evident good thing you fellows got here and
put up those markers so if I asked the street much less my lot they all look alike underwater if it hadn't been for the Air Force being so proud of those floodlights we could've found those last two guys not till morning anyway and they have been gone as by then the sanest I was having his teeth drawn and sometimes yellow the town I don't like it could not be prevented. This lack of any really adequate safeguards is one of the elements which makes it go and I don't like this I asked him what other elements the unexpectedness of the event like a preparation when good foresight a fairly adequate warning system and constructive action before the fact to realize it's full of frightening and disorganizing potential disaster would have to look elsewhere and look elsewhere it did. And now. Two hundred miles away two hours later to Waco Texas at the height of the
afternoon rush hour with hundreds of shoppers and employees still in the business district with family drivers waiting in cars outside their disaster found another town not so well prepared. Not so heated full of its dangers. Hey fellow what you doing still downtown. Why aren't you home get ready for the storm. I hear there's a tornado coming. Yeah I heard something like that too. I don't put any stock in it. You know how the Indians figured no storm is going to get down in amongst these hills so why get ready for something that never has happened. Well when you put it that way no reason I guess. No reason at all. There were reasons lots of them. How many depended on how you counted and what after the tornado had cut its path of death and destruction through the heart of Waco and 10 tragic minutes that very afternoon. 114 persons dead one thousand seriously injured two square miles of business establishments completely destroyed. Eight hundred and
seventy five houses wrecked. You could count the reasons for preparing in advance of this asteroid or you could count the crises that mushroom the one upon the other in this stunned and stricken city where it became more evident with every urgent moment that there was in these first desperate hours of catastrophe. Nobody really definitely. Take the mystery you enjoyed just last week a thing depends on what you mean by in charge. Some guy told me over here and said When I send out a commercial messages for the next hour I saw my look then of plasma that first aid station over by the bank. I can't do that anything else. Hear the radio. I don't know. I just can't. Gotta have that plasma.
I guess you just have to think the way they are that's all you can do. With paper. The dishonest had destroyed the social out of the city for a time but I can plan a direction. Single places and groups had no choice but to move and tackle whatever problems they solved and whatever ways they could. Three of them. We've got to move this to get them out of the whole mess. Looks to me like you know anything about construction. Not much me there but my guess is it's wedged under that beam and my guess is if we move
this timber that slab will hold up the rest of the overhead but those people down there they've had it. Nobody had to tell them what or how. But on every hand the grim and desperate evidence of things that must be done. That is the dilemma that faced the people of Waco. Yes this was no dream. This was a grim reality that might say new even if they still could not see the situation clearly. The creation of the strange and frightening wild was the real the destruction and suffering in it were real and something must be done to set things to rights. Then answer that was do something. Try to put things back to my strength and activity.
That's right. Just keep up the Tappan so we can tell where you are on all this stuff. Where do you have all. Don't you worry about that. And it's going to take some doing. Do you ever see so many breakers nor want so many. No place to pull just over the wall like we do and I guess. That sure is the hard way and slow when I really made a dent in this thing yet. That poor guy down there can't last forever. Oh. Come on. Wait a minute somebody is throwing the bricks back over here. You got them thangs back over here. Well yes. When you're marrying a man we never going to get out of you know quit throwing them bricks back over here. I say get to it if you gotta get out of the way. There's some bricks coming down if you want to happen and keep on hoping.
We're coming to you. Young. People wake up with a friend and a dedicated selflessness admiration but because they're directed and uncoordinated in many cases futile and old and in this climate of joint activity those with vital jobs found themselves. MR Yeah but are you real busy. Well I'm just trying to look this guy over yonder. National Guard guy is trying to direct traffic. Those cars are jammed up for blocks. We just got on his own. Yeah so they won't pay any attention to him and he says go get somebody and I just had a kind of uniform come on Mister we got a show to run right over the guy before we get back. Here with you officer I've got to get to heaven but I'm nobody gets
to city hall without a body without a pass of the emergency. I know that I'm a registered nurse. I needed emergency rooms and the articles I can get. Past city hall. The misdirected effort where swift and coordinated action was vitally needed and all the while hard working but unprepared officials playing a grim game of. But hey you seem to see the director Mr. What's his name not lately he's all over the place trying to trying to seat everything it wants no way to get in touch with any place but to hop over there. Well if you run into IMO anybody that knows where he is tell him is a guy here federal representative says sit down to help out. He's been here six hours already or like town to meet this fellow. I do see him I don't know. There was some talk of headquartered in a city hall but it's crowded to the rafters. No windows lights.
I just don't know. Just telling us fellows looking for him I guess for him to start looking for this fella. But more and more it became distressingly evident that strength when not enough that the frenzied effort involved in doing something was not by itself going to put things back to normal then mazing out based of energy on the part of officials and says it needed to be harnessed. It needed to be controlled and directed. Shortly before midnight on Monday the day of the tornado a meeting was held at the state police headquarters in Waco. Today Captain Sam Gardner of the Texas State Highway Patrol recalls it this way there came a time when someone had to step out and say we will wire the money. Someone with the power to make the decisions must say we've got to do it one way or another. Right or wrong we'll do it this way. What finally boiled down was a central control committee and they had let's say the authority to give or pass final judgment on any particular question. No one man could do it
all. Every man in a position of authority was intensely busy at the time. There had to be an organization that could operate in a new situation but it was not until Tuesday afternoon three meetings and 24 hours after the tornado that the key question who's in charge here was at last resolved. Oh and. The inner door. Here is Mr. Rolfe Wolff mayor of Waco at the time of the tornado. Tell us how this question was resolved by the time of the first meeting on Tuesday afternoon. We the Waco city officials were convinced that this whole disaster problem was more than we could cope with. However I did not know at that time that the man was supposed to take charge. And as the meeting was called the military authorities were there. The businessman of the town members of the Chamber of
Commerce and they asked me to take charge. I tried to get the military to do that. I had done such a terrific job and we all knew how much we had depended upon their help already. Let General dissuade who represented the Air Force said no. Since martial law had not been declared the air force did not have legal authority to take over. He said that it was my responsibility so I accepted it. We immediately then set up an organization and the Air Force officer drew up the organizational plan for this sample dis Aster committee the Air Force officer drew up an organizational plan after the creation of the disaster committee with the mayor as its head central control was gained by the city of Waco disaster activities proceeded more smoothly and the order was gradually restored. On May 20th nine days after the tornado when emergency operations were over the committee was disbanded.
Members of the Waco disaster committee were mostly city officials the Post held on the committee were not necessarily those which official tell to one city government function normally and the whole when you are organizations have been added to the city's structure still by and large do time those who had been in charge before this Astra struck once again in charge but it is important for us to remember this did not happen immediately and it did not happen automatically. It did not happen in Waco and it may not happen in other cities until many vital hours have been lost and much of vital effort has been wasted. Tell us why this is so. Here is Mr. William L. McGill director of defense and disaster relief for the state of Texas. A modern community as we know it is a very complex and. Crucial to its very survival. Although many private commercial or governmental organizations the agencies you know the way which provide
particular public service to the people of the. City government is one of these agencies. It is in fact the agency do which we normally look for overall control and authority in meeting our basic needs. But sometimes a second ordinary. A situation arises in which the customary procedures for meeting our vital needs. Are neither right. Nor out of. Strict devotion to the usual regulations is not that in the least. An official know no other course of action or highly ineffectual. The uncommon condition may even become so extreme. That our very survival depends on how well and how quickly the rules can be changed and modified. To fit the new situation. More and more as we look carefully to see what happens to communities when disaster struck. We find evidence that we find
compelling indications that improvise the efforts of individuals and groups. Are no substitute in terms of survival for the age. When Disaster Strikes. Radio television the University of Texas has brought you the third in this series of programs designed to show how Americans react to the crisis of a disaster situation. Today's program who's in charge here was prepared with the cooperation and assistance of Dr. Harry Moore of the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas and the Hogg foundation for mental health.
I special guest today was Mr. William L. McGill director of defense and disaster relief for the state of Texas. We're indebted to the division of defense and disaster relief for the governor's office the state of Texas for material from its files and to the British Information Services for material from frontline. The official story of the civil defense of Britain published by the Macmillan company. When disaster strikes is directed by Arsinoe writes from scripts by the Durham twins under the supervision of Robert F.. Special Music is under the supervision of Elena Pate who composed the original score. Your narrator is Jimmy Martin. Cactus Pryor speaking. Who's in charge here was produced and recorded by radio television at the University of Texas under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center. And is being distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end i.e. Radio Network.
Series
When disaster strikes
Episode
Who's in charge here?
Producing Organization
University of Texas
KUT (Radio station : Austin, Tex.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-08638f63
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-08638f63).
Description
Episode Description
Problems of command and direction. Dilemmas of control and coordination. Sources of leadership. How disaster affects customary controls and authorities.
Series Description
This series focuses on disaster preparation, as well as the effects wrought by disaster.
Broadcast Date
1959-01-01
Topics
Public Affairs
Subjects
Tornado damage
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:31
Embed Code
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Credits
Composer: Page, Frances Eleanor
Director: Norris, R. C.
Guest: McGill, William L.
Narrator: Morriss, Jimmy
Producing Organization: University of Texas
Producing Organization: KUT (Radio station : Austin, Tex.)
Speaker: Moore, Harry E.
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 59-15-3 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:04
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Citations
Chicago: “When disaster strikes; Who's in charge here?,” 1959-01-01, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-08638f63.
MLA: “When disaster strikes; Who's in charge here?.” 1959-01-01. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-08638f63>.
APA: When disaster strikes; Who's in charge here?. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-08638f63