[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 40 (Tuesday, April 8, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S2808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page S2808]]



                        DISASTER IN THE DAKOTAS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I came to the floor to visit about a very 
important issue, the issue of the chemical weapons treaty and the 
requirement the Senate vote on that treaty. But before I do that, I 
want to tell my colleagues of a circumstance that exists in our part of 
the country that they have no doubt seen and heard on the television 
and radio and that is the worst blizzard we have seen in some 50 years 
in North Dakota on top of a flooding condition that was already 
existing that looks to be a 100-year flood.
  Last evening, I and my colleagues from North and South Dakota went to 
see President Clinton in the White House along with the head of the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency to discuss the emergency that 
exists in our part of the country.
  The President has made a disaster declaration. He has signed it. 
There is now a team of people from FEMA in the Dakotas beginning to 
work, beginning to marshal equipment from around the country--
generators, snow removal equipment, and a whole range of things that 
will be necessary to deal with this crisis.
  I want to tell my colleagues of the kind of crisis that exists. 
Again, we had a blizzard that in many parts of North Dakota gave us 15, 
18, and 20 inches of snowfall on top of a circumstance that already 
existed that would have provided us and will provide us with a flood 
that is a 100-year event. So this is an enormously difficult time for 
North Dakotans. We have had the spectacle of people actually 
sandbagging in the middle of a blizzard, which is a very unusual event. 
Normally you fight a flood or normally you fight to survive a blizzard, 
but we have had the confluence of two events that is enormously 
difficult. We have substantial livestock death. We have reports of 
people missing entire livestock herds. The stories of people helping 
one another in coping this past weekend are compelling and gripping, of 
courage, neighbor helping neighbor. It is a very tough time in the 
Dakotas.
  My colleagues and I will likely be going back out--we just came 
back--with the senior team which the President will send. He intends 
James Lee Witt and I believe at least one other Cabinet Secretary and 
some others as part of a senior team from the administration to go out 
and to survey the damage and to begin the active work of supervising 
the people who are already on the ground.
  This is as tough a time as anything I have ever seen in the Dakotas. 
Most North Dakotans tell me it is the toughest winter they have ever 
seen. The blizzard this weekend, as I indicated, is the toughest we 
have had in 50 years in North Dakota, and it came on top of five or six 
successive blizzards in North Dakota that essentially shut down our 
State on five or six occasions previously. As of Saturday evening, this 
past Saturday evening, in North Dakota traffic was stopped in virtually 
every direction on every road. It was a very difficult time and remains 
a very difficult time with thousands of North Dakotans still without 
electricity after many days. This is a crisis which will continue to 
exist because of the flooding which has not yet crested in many parts, 
especially of the Red River.
  I thank President Clinton; I thank James Lee Witt, the head of FEMA; 
I thank our colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, who join together in 
times like this to extend a helping hand to people who need help and 
who are fighting their way through a crisis that is very difficult to 
deal with.

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