"What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate" from episode #043 "Weathering the Storm"

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2019

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas this week, and east coast states from Florida to North Carolina are bracing for its impact. In preparation, governors are declaring states of emergency to allow emergency management teams to coordinate and act quickly. But in this segment from BackStory's 2012 show, "Weathering the Storm," host emeritus Peter Onuf learns from Oxford University professor Gareth Davies that responses to disasters are often fraught with politics.

Image: Poseidon by Mark Rain (www.azrainman.com). Source: Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

BackStory is funded in part by our listeners. You can help keep the episodes coming by supporting the show: https://www.backstoryradio.org/support

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode was originally broadcast in 2012.
0:04.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor,
0:07.0	the National Endowment for the Humanities,
0:09.0	and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.
0:15.0	From Virginia Humanities,
0:19.0	this is Backstory.
0:24.0	Welcome to Backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.
0:29.0	I'm Brian Ballot.
0:31.0	If you're new to the podcast,
0:33.0	each week, along with my colleagues at Ares, Joanne Freeman, and Nathan Connolly,
0:37.0	we explore a topic of American history that's been in the news.
0:42.0	In June of 1957, a powerful hurricane by the name of Audrey
0:46.0	slammed into the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.
0:50.0	Hundreds of people were killed,
0:52.0	making it the sixth deadliest hurricane on record in the US.
0:57.0	So what did the federal government do in the wake of this terrible storm?
1:00.0	President Eisenhower didn't visit the devastation.
1:03.0	Congress was in session,
1:05.0	but it didn't hold any special discussion on the response to the hurricane.
1:10.0	A billion dollars worth of damage had been done,
1:13.0	but lawmakers appropriated a poultry two million dollars in aid.
1:17.0	And here's the most amazing part.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BackStory, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BackStory and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.