"Like many terms, civil defense has several different connotations and communication is often impossible when different meanings are used without some agreement on usage. In its most inclusive meaning, civil defense connotes a function. Thus, civil defense is a description of any and all activities carried out by governmental or quasi-governmental agencies in preparation for and during actual emergencies. This most inclusive meaning is often associated with wartime and potential nuclear attack situations". According to this meaning, civil defense is "civil government in emergency." The analysis which follows does not use such an inclusive meaning. The referent here is the activities and functions which are performed by the social units called civil defense within the local community. We have found that in the vocabularies of most American communities, civil defense is most commonly used not as a function, but to refer to the particular identity and activities of the "civil defense office." In American society, the local civil defense office is not exclusively concerned with problems relating to potential nuclear attack but also becomes involved in other types of community emergencies, especially disasters. To the other community organizations which become involved in these disaster operations, the civil defense office is seen as only one part of the total emergency picture. (Anderson, Local Civil Defense in Natural Disaster", 1969, p. 4)