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• 1 media/orgin thumb.jpg media/EXH_RMD16_005_0017_0011_0001-066 crop.jpg media/orgin thumb.jpg 2020-11-13T15:25:10-06:00 From Civil Defense to Emergency Management 13 Chicagoans prepared for other disasters. image_header 2021-06-02T10:06:30-05:00 Interest in civil defense planning declined in the late 1960s. As the American war in Vietnam dominated headlines and policy discussions, the Cold War appeared less as an abstract threat of atomic exchange and more like an active battle with boots on the ground. The novelty of atomic war had wound down and Americans no longer believed they could survive a nuclear attack.
  
  In the 1970s, a series of natural disasters led planners to shift to a broader focus on emergency preparedness for a variety of calamities. A renewed effort to prepare for the evacuation of the Chicago Loop in the case of enemy attack took place after September 11, 2001.  
  
  In 1986 Chicago became one of dozens of municipalities to officially reject civil defense programs to prepare for nuclear attack. The city council revised the city code to declare such efforts “futile and dangerous.” The measure was a notable display of political consensus in an era when aldermen were engaged in the racially charged “Council Wars” and had threatened physical fights in other policy debates.