helicopters. After the floods of Hurricane Diane, more than 100,000 people fled to shelter or away from their houses. The American Red Cross quickly provided aid to the affected residents, using churches and public buildings to house homeless people. In the two weeks after the storm, Americans donated about $10 million to the Red Cross. The countries of Great Britain, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, France, Austria, and Venezuela offered aid to help the flood victims, sending emergency supplies. Additional flooding affected New England in September and October 1955, although neither was as major as those caused by Hurricane Diane. Following Diane, hundreds of companies affected by the flooding installed waterproof doors and windows to preempt similar disasters in the future. President Dwight Eisenhower declared eight states as disaster areas, making them eligible for federal aid. The Small Business Administration opened 18 temporary offices in the eastern United States for people to take out disaster loan applications. In the months after the storm, both the United States federal government and the American Red Cross had difficulty raising enough funds for the storm victims; collectively, the Red Cross, the Small Business Administration, and Farmers Home Administration raised $37 million, which was less than 8% of Diane's damage total. Throughout 1955, the Red Cross assisted about 10,000 families in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states; some of the families received aid to move to a new house not in a flood zone. The Small Business Administration provided about 1,600 loans, totaling $25 million, for small businesses. Senator Herbert H. Lehman proposed a $12 billion federal flood insurance program. In 1956, the United States Congress passed the Federal Flood Insurance Act, but the program was not enacted due to lack of funding. A nationwide flood program was not enacted until the passage of the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. After the floods from Diane, the American federal government provided funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to construct dams and reservoirs throughout New England to mitigate future flooding. In about 14 years, the Corps built 29 dams in Connecticut alone at the cost of $70 million, including three along the Connecticut River. The federal government restored plans from the 1930s to build dams along the Delaware River, one of which along Tocks Island. A controversy arose there due to the long reservoir the dam would have created, causing 600 families to be displaced. The