[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H745-H746]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              WEST VIRGINIA DIGGING OUT FROM RECORD FLOOD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, today West Virginia is digging out from a 
record flood, just like your State of Pennsylvania, and like other 
areas of the mid-Atlantic. I want to report to Congress today on our 
efforts and to ask for assistance.
  Mr. Speaker, this was a true bicoastal flood for our State, going 
from the Ohio River all the way to the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, 
from border to border of our State. The Governor, during the weekend, 
declared 29 of our 55 counties in a state of emergency. Thousands have 
been driven from their homes or had their homes and jobs threatened. 
Water systems have been damaged, sewer systems have been compromised. 
Businesses in some cases have been wiped out, others will take a while 
to resume. Highways in some cases have been washed out.
  From Friday night, beginning Friday night in the basement of the 
State capital and the State Office of Emergency Services office, I have 
tried to monitor and follow this flood as closely as possible. From 
Friday night, with the State OES personnel, to traveling with the 
Governor on Saturday to our hardest hit central West Virginia counties, 
to going Sunday night to Mason County to watch the Ohio River as it 
began its relentless rise, and then yesterday back across the State to 
Jefferson County where I watched the swollen Potomac and Shenandoah 
Rivers as they began to recede, I can testify about how awesome and how 
devastating this flood has been for many of our people.
  Today and yesterday our staff has been fanning out across the hardest 
hit counties trying to bring immediate word about where people can get 
assistance and to assist in assessing the damage.
  Mr. Speaker, in the face of this devastation, of course, we also see 
incredible acts of human spirit, and I just cannot speak highly enough 
or applaud loudly enough nor respect enough those thousands of 
volunteers across our State at every level: The hundreds of National 
Guard that were mobilized and responded. We do not know what it means, 
in a county that is still watching the flood waters recede, to see 
those National Guard uniforms come rolling in on those trucks bringing 
the promise of help.
  The emergency service personnel at every level in the county and the 
State, the Red Cross, the sheriff and police departments, the highway 
department staffs, the Corps of Engineers, who control the many dams 
that prevented the damage from being far worse. All of them working 
long hours, Mr. Speaker. Long hours, of course, that did not start just 
with this flood, but started with the blizzard that began over 10 days 
before. Then the flood came and many of those volunteers and personnel 
are still working. Many individual acts of people rebuilding 
immediately their lives.
  One question I have received, Mr. Speaker, time after time as I made 
my trip back across the flood-stricken 

[[Page H746]]
areas, ``Bob, will funding be cut off next week for any of the vital 
activities?'' I am confident that this Congress will not permit that to 
happen.
  I am assured that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is taken 
care of financially, at least for the immediate future, but we must 
also remember the other flood recovery programs, the Small Business 
Administration's disaster recovery loans, the Economic Development 
Administration, which has been so active in economic recovery in the 
Midwest and many of our other devastated areas, the HUD, Housing and 
Urban Development programs, and so the many other programs, too. We 
must make sure and vow, Mr. Speaker, that no amount of partisan 
politics will stop these vital programs from going forward and that 
there will be no interruption in flood recovery.

  Mr. Speaker, if I can report some positive things. Our death rate was 
nowhere near as high as 1985, even through the 1985 flood levels were 
reached in some communities. Some communities have been hit every bit 
as hard as 1985, but many, some in the Eastern Panhandle, saw far less 
damage. Sometimes the water did not crest at the predicted levels. In 
other cases flood prevention efforts such as dikes and levies have been 
installed. We are smarter in many of our areas now and we know to 
evacuate. We have a much more professional emergency services 
operation.
  But there are also farther reaching flood implications. While many 
counties in the central part of our State did not see the 1985 flood 
levels, at the same time we had to deal with the Ohio River. Nine 
additional counties that were not affected, but did see record levels 
not seen since 1972 in Hurricane Agnes. So this time we are much more 
far-reaching in the flood devastation.
  Mr. Speaker, one woman stood on her front porch pushing liquid mud 
down the steps with a broom. Behind her stood her sons and her 
neighbors helping her dig out. Tears ran down her face as she cried and 
quietly said, ``I have lost my home and my job.'' Her home had been 
devastated for the second time in 10 years. Her workplace has been 
wiped out and her employer said he was not returning.
  Mr. Speaker, she knows what she has to do. She will do the work. She 
is going to rebuild. She just asks that wherever this Congress and this 
Federal Government, her Federal Government, can help, it do so and we 
owe her that.

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