[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 7 (Monday, January 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S181-S182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FLOODING IN PENNSYLVANIA

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I wanted to follow up the remarks of my 
senior Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter], and talk about the 
problems that we are having in Pennsylvania today. The first thing I 
wanted to do was make sure the record is very clear in my use of the 
word ``liberal.'' I suggested that FEMA be more liberal than what they 
have been to date, as of early this morning, in declaring counties in 
Pennsylvania eligible for individual assistance, for emergency disaster 
relief funds. I think that was an appropriate call given the fact that 
the Governor of Pennsylvania, who knows a little bit about the 
Emergency Relief Act that is in place here because he helped write it 
several years ago and knows it cover to cover, declared 58 of 
Pennsylvania's 67 counties disaster areas and was seeking Federal grant 
recognition for, if not all, certainly a great majority of those 
counties.
  Senator Specter, I know, has been traveling the State extensively, as 
have I. We have seen the tremendous damage done by this heavy snowfall 
and subsequent quick melting and floods and then freezing again, 
causing ice jams and horrible damage on our Commonwealth's rivers and 
streams. We do believe that several more counties should be included in 
the list that are eligible for individual assistance, and obviously the 
process will commence to determine whether those counties and 
municipalities will be eligible for public assistance, for reimbursing 
municipalities and counties for the cost of cleanup and dealing with 
the problems of this horrible storm.

  I understand that the senior Senator has already talked about how 
today James Lee Witt, the head of FEMA, has been up to the State of 
Pennsylvania and he has added to the list of 6 counties an additional 
19 counties, bringing to 25 the number of counties that will now be 
eligible for some assistance.
  We were in Harrisburg this morning. I know he mentioned we saw some 
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the devastation on City Island, which is a recreational park in 
Harrisburg that is just literally covered with big boulders of ice and 
destroying all the public buildings there that I would say are 
relatively brand new. They in the last 10 years constructed a AA 
baseball stadium there that is severely damaged from ice.
  That has really made this disaster a lot different because Harrisburg 
was hit back in 1972 with very severe flooding as a result of Hurricane 
Agnes. In fact, the mayor and others have been telling us that while 
the flood levels were not as high as Hurricane Agnes, although in some 
areas they were almost as high, the damage, they believe, actually will 
be more because of the ice. Literally, Senator Specter and I were 
walking around an area that was 5 feet underwater just 24 hours before, 
and sitting there all over the place were boulders of ice almost my 
size and probably bigger, with trees frozen to them. It was really a 
rather gruesome picture. You could actually see the water level because 
on the houses and the fences and on the trees you could see where the 
ice had frozen around the tree, around the houses, sort of jutting out 
from the houses. So you could pretty well tell everywhere where the 
water levels had risen to.
  We were through that area and saw the damage that the ice had caused 
to streets and to houses, the buckling effect of having water there and 
then freezing and then unfreezing. It looks almost like an earthquake 
on some of the roads; they are just sort of warped, with big sinkholes 
and things like that as a result of this freezing and thawing and 
freezing again and the amount of water pressure.
  In fact, Senator Specter and I met with Mayor Reed of Harrisburg, 
whom I have to commend; he has done a tremendous job in rallying the 
troops in Harrisburg, one of our hardest hit cities, and is doing an 
outstanding job personally. He is someone whom I have known for quite 
some time and know he puts every ounce of his person in his job. I am 
sure he has not slept for days. He met us in boots and blue jeans and 
looked like he had not been able to get into his house, probably even 
to eat a meal, in a few days. He has really just been on the go.

  They had a horrible fire in this area I was talking about that was 5 
feet under water. They had, unfortunately, a fire break out last night 
that destroyed four historic town homes. And luckily no one was 
injured. The area was evacuated obviously and no one was injured as a 
resident. But several of the firefighters, they had to cut their way 
through the ice and wade through water, waist high at that time, and 
fight the fire without obviously any fire hoses. They had to string 
them literally blocks to get fire hoses there.
  My understanding is that a dozen firefighters were carried from the 
scene with hypothermia--a horrible situation. I know Mayor Reed was 
there the entire time working on it. He showed us the Walnut Street 
bridge, which is the oldest--I am not going to get this right--it is 
the oldest of some type of bridge having to do with metal construction. 
That bridge was expected to collapse during the 1972 flood when 
actually the river went up over the platform of the bridge.
  In this case it was several feet below it. But a section of the 
bridge--you may have seen on television--was knocked away. The reason 
was not because of the water flow. Again, it was the ice jams. An ice 
jam had a large amount of ice collected at this one abutment, and 
eventually with all the pressure it was knocked over, was knocked into 
the river. They expect another one of those pillars to fall relatively 
soon.
  So there has been a severe amount of damage. Senator Specter and I 
are very concerned about the Federal response to the damage across 
Pennsylvania. We believe that in some instances the response was 
delayed. I know the President would like to see all the people and 
communities that have been severely hurt by this storm to get the kind 
of assistance that they need to begin to clean up and rebuild their 
lives.
  I am hopeful that we can move forward. As Senator Specter said, 
initially only six counties were listed as qualifying for this 
assistance. One of the counties that did not qualify originally, and 
did not qualify until this afternoon, was a county where there were 6 
people known dead, 75 people missing from an area that was a large 
housing development that was literally just swept away. Water rose 
rapidly. People were given no warning. The consequences were terrible. 
Yet that county was not listed originally on the disaster list, which 
amazed many of us and frankly was very discouraging.
  I had occasion to talk to people up in Williamsport, Lycoming County. 
And they were very discouraged. Somehow they were suffering to this 
degree, and in fact accounted, from my understanding, for over half the 
deaths related to this storm in the Northeast, and yet were not listed 
as a county eligible for disaster assistance. That caused some 
legitimate uneasiness to where actually their needs and concerns were 
being paid attention to. I am happy to report they were listed in the 
second round.

  There are other counties that we need to look at that I believe have 
legitimate needs to be met. Hopefully we can do that, we can do that 
expeditiously. I want to join Senator Specter in congratulating 
Secretary Pena and Director Witt for being up in Pennsylvania today to 
survey the damage, to see the extent of what seemed to be just a flood.
  I remind you the compounding effect of the ice is something I do not 
think anyone recognized. I was in Lancaster County, which unfortunately 
has yet to be declared a disaster county.
  I was in Marietta which was flooded, at least the parts nearest the 
river were flooded. Their big concern right now is the freezing that is 
going on. They were flooded. They have something like a dike. It is 
actually a railroad track that runs between the river and the town that 
is very high up and serves like a dike. But they got flooded through 
their storm sewers, and the water reaching its level filled up both 
sides of the dike. Now they are concerned with the storm sewers. 
Because of the very cold temperatures, they are now frozen. If they get 
any more rain, which is anticipated tomorrow, or any other 
precipitation, they will have the same problem all over again.
  Many counties and many cities, they have that same problem with 
either frozen surface areas that prevent water from draining or the 
infrastructure underneath the ground itself containing ice and frozen 
debris is going to cause a real problem with drainage.
  So we are not out of the woods yet. There is unfortunately still a 
lot of snow on the ground. The possibility exists, with the warm 
weather today, we could even see some more problems. So I want to 
congratulate Governor Ridge and Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker for their 
tremendous role in responding to this emergency. They have been all 
over the State, have been very aggressive in trying to seek aid, and 
have also been very aggressive in trying to help municipalities trying 
to deal with the problems that have beset them.
  I think we have seen a very good effort on the part of locally 
elected officials, and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. I think--
at least I hope that we can be proud of the Federal role that is being 
played in Pennsylvania. I think we are coming along a little slowly, 
but maybe today with some fly-arounds and other things that are going 
on, we can impress upon officials here in Washington and in the 
regional office that this is a true emergency, a disaster that needs to 
be attended to, and the Federal Government has a role to play in 
helping those individuals and municipalities that were affected by it.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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