FORT BELVOIR, Va. –
There is a common misconception that the Defense Logistics Agency became a whole-of-government provider after Hurricane Katrina. While the agency did systemize its catastrophe response following the 2005 destruction of New Orleans, it has been helping the nation react to weather events since the early 1970s. DLA came to this mission not just from a concern about duplicating federal capabilities but because President John F. Kennedy made the Defense Department responsible for protecting Americans from nuclear attack.
When the Defense Supply Agency formed in 1961, DOD’s Office of Civil Defense oversaw efforts to protect the nation from nuclear weapons. Two weeks after DSA became operational, Gordon L. Harris, DSA’s public affairs director, alerted his supply center counterparts that their commands would play “an important role in” supporting the office.
Harris proved accurate. Two of OCD’s missions were resourcing fallout shelters and maintaining equipment for post-attack cleanup. To support fallout shelters, the Defense Subsistence Supply Center bought shelf-stable breads, the Defense General Supply Center procured sanitary items, and the Defense Medical Supply Center designed medical kits. To manage post-attack equipment, DSA assumed stock control responsibilities from an office in Battle Creek, Michigan.
OCD’s decision to give DSA distribution missions was less obvious than it seems today. While the agency was establishing a warehouse network, the only depots it owned in 1962 were those that came with its supply centers in Richmond, Virginia, and Columbus, Ohio. Instead of using these relatively small facilities, DSA assembled medical kits at Army properties in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tracy, California.
While large depots were best for kitting, small warehouses close to communities mattered more for storing material. DSA staged fallout shelter items at 93 sites across the country, dispatching them as needed to 31,000 state and territorial customers. It maintained generators, pumps and other post-attack equipment that General Services Administration had obtained for OCD at 45 of these sites.
The distribution mission was massive because the procurement mission was massive. To purchase fallout shelter items, DSA dedicated $55 million of its initial $591 million obligating authority. Factoring in the cost of maintaining stock, civil defense accounted for more than 10% of agency business in January 1962. In October, the Cuban Missile Crisis increased this percentage even further. By year’s end, DSA was struggling to meet demand. Rushing to serve customers, it sometimes issued water drums without polyethylene liners, separately stocked items necessary for using the drums. Expedited action by the Defense General Supply Center and increases to OCD’s budget for 1963 and 1964 corrected imbalances.
Fortunately, neither the items DSA distributed nor those it warehoused had to be used for their intended purposes. They did have to be maintained, however. Shelf-stable bread and radiologic devices required inspection and, on occasion, replacement. The agency conducted health-related inspections with Army and Air Force veterinarians and radiologic checks with contracted experts. To manage the workload, DSA received permission to reduce storage sites by two-thirds.
Time altered OCD and its fallout shelter program. The increasing destructiveness of nuclear weapons made resisting their effects futile. DSA stopped replacing items and sold, donated or destroyed excess. In 1970, the agency donated 105,000 pounds of survival rations to tropical cyclone-ravished Pakistan. DSA used post-attack equipment solely for weather disasters. After flooding inundated Appalachian mountain valleys in November 1968, for example, it loaned Tennessee and North Carolina high-capacity water pumps.
Disaster assistance soon became DLA’s most consistent whole-of-government effort. After President Jimmy Carter created the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of OCD and other offices, DLA helped the new organization respond to hurricanes Hugo in 1989 and Andrew in 1992. By the time Katrina struck, the two agencies had a well-established relationship.
Other than cataloging and disposal, DSA’s first charter was ambiguous about customers outside DOD. What grew the agency’s whole-of-government business was not just the prohibition against duplicating federal capabilities but the proximity of cleanup items to communities suffering natural disasters. The dual civilian-military character of DSA items mirrored the dual civilian-military character of civil defense.