[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 2, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               MAJOR DISASTER CONDITIONS IN PENNSYLVANIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, at this very moment, Pennsylvania is being 
hit yet again with a severe winter storm, the proportions of which are 
yet to accumulate in the Commonwealth.
  This brings us to a point where we must repeat the history of this 
winter thus far for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the context of 
requests made to the President to take note of the conditions in the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
  On February 2, the Governor of the Commonwealth, the Honorable Robert 
Casey, issued a letter to the President in which he asked that the 
President declare Pennsylvania to be a major disaster. Not only did we 
already have several waves of winter weather, severe winter weather, 
but then an earthquake hit several counties of the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania.
  The combination of the two, the relief efforts for the earthquake 
troubled by the severe winter storm, plus the multicounty impact of the 
adverse winter conditions, prompted the Governor to issue this letter 
to the President.
  The Members of Congress from Pennsylvania, the entire delegation, 
followed that up with a letter on February 3, directly to the 
President. It was signed by every Member of the House and by the two 
Senators, Senators Wofford and Specter of Pennsylvania. In this letter 
to the President, we repeated the itemization of what had been 
happening to Pennsylvania and what continues to happen.
  Here we are tonight not yet having received a response from the White 
House. Yet financial conditions grow worse. Supplies of all kinds are 
dwindling. Highway crews are being taxed to their limit. The various 
agencies in the Commonwealth are way beyond their budgets in responding 
to these storms, and a variety of the problems that every State from 
time to time faces in emergency measures have hit again in the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
  So today I followed all of this up with another letter to the 
President referring back to the letter of the delegation dated February 
3 which relates back to the letter by the Governor on February 2.

                              {time}  2010

  We repeat, we say to the President that he ought to now declare the 
emergency that is required and begin the process of funneling the 
needed funds to Pennsylvania to try to rectify the horrors of the 
latest onslaught of the winter storms.

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