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New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Office of Program Development, Planning and Research Hurricane Agnes Damage Files

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Overview of the Records

Scope and Content Note

The series contains correspondence, news releases, newspaper clippings, damage survey reports, resolutions, travel vouchers, and weather data dealing with damage claims, emergency state response, and cleanup efforts resulting from Hurricane Agnes.

In June 1972, Hurricane Agnes caused flooding that led to real property damage in many Hudson Valley, Central, and Southern Tier counties in New York. Emergency federal disaster loans were made available soon afterward. The records were generated and accumulated by the Department of Environmental Conservation's Bureau of Programming and Analysis. The records document the magnitude of the natural disaster (wind velocities, flood water levels, etc.), property damage through surveys completed according to federal guidelines, and the coordination, planning, and progress of disaster response efforts. Damage reports were compiled by department personnel and sent to the federal government; the department's responsibility for monitoring environmental conditions (especially water resources) led to its coordination of the environmental emergency.

Close to half of the series consists of damage survey reports. These reports were compiled by department personnel on a standard form (under Public Law 606 of the 91st Congress) submitted to the federal government, and contain detailed information on place and type of damage sustained. All are photocopies or carbon copies. They provide the following information: applicant's name and disaster location by state and county; disaster declaration date and inspection date; category of work to be performed (emergency or permanent); how work accomplished (contract or force account); location and description of damaged facilities; detailed description of damage; proposed work and estimate summaries of work to be performed (including quantity, unit, material and/or description, unit price and cost); insurance coverage (yes or no); recommendation (eligible or ineligible), with signature of federal inspector, agency, and date; and concurrences, with signature and agency/office of state inspector and signature of the applicant's representative.

A second standard type of information is found in drainage survey report forms that are compilations on stream improvement from headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. These include name of county and stream, work category, and a total dollar amount. Some of these are marked "Complete" or "Submitted" with a date.

The series also includes the following: gauge readings from river stage report logs of the flood control emergency center, giving date, time, and height in feet of rivers/creeks at various sites; right of way agreements with property owners to allow removal of debris from state watercourses and adjacent lands; weather summaries from the National Weather Service Forecast Office (Albany); summary of a hydrologic study of tropical storm Agnes by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assess impact of the storm on design parameters of their projects and to guide rehabilitation and construction efforts; some photographs and slides of flood damage; press releases on flood conditions by the governor's office; memoranda regarding flood control coordination authorizations, lines of communication and recovery priorities, and personnel assignments; travel vouchers and statements, requests for advances, and information on related flood emergency expenses of state personnel; preliminary estimates of overtime expenses for emergency operations and recovery operations; memoranda on applying regulations to flood cleanup (e.g., open burning of dead trees), responsibility for flood plain insurance, and local insurance coverage;

correspondence and memoranda on criteria for flood protection activities, including budget recommendation to expand the cooperative program with the U.S. Geological Survey to obtain hydrologic and hydraulic data on floods (stream gaging program) to improve forecasting/warning systems; materials on the testimony of department officials before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Disaster Relief regarding disaster legislation and disaster operations; resolutions of county boards of supervisors to seek aid from federal and state agencies for damage conditions; and reports on the status of flood plain zoning and regulation by local governments.

The few maps found in the series are whiteprints or photocopies that are sometimes annotated to show areas of flood damage, location of flooding watercourses, or amount or extent of precipitation or flooding. Examples include: a set of six whiteprint project plans of the Susquehanna River from Binghamton to Waverly by the Corps of Engineers, annotated (by numbers 1 to 111) with stream clearing and debris removal sites that coincide with right of way agreements found elsewhere in the series; photocopies of standard road maps and maps of river districts annotated to show the amount of precipitation (in inches) at various sites along/near rivers; and unannotated photocopies or whiteprints of county maps and vicinity maps with general plans (e.g., of the Susquehanna River Basin showing project locations) apparently for referral on watercourses.

The series also contains several diagrams and mylar transparencies of flood stages (in feet/time) for rivers and streams at various points (e.g., Canisteo River at Hornell). There is data for the Canisteo, Chemung, Cohocton, and Tioga rivers, among others.

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