[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 29, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3773-S3774]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE DISASTER IN THE NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor today once again to 
talk about the disaster that has occurred in the northern Great Plains, 
specifically South Dakota, Minnesota, and North Dakota, and to talk 
just a bit about the need for us to proceed with a disaster 
appropriations bill.
  Mr. President, this poster is of a North Dakota farmer standing in 
front of a 20-foot snowbank. This happens to be level ground. You could 
not tell that much by what the poster looks like. Three years of snow 
falling in 3 months in North Dakota, capped by the worst blizzard in 50 
years, which in many parts of the State added 2 more feet of snow. That 
created a set of conditions that resulted in the disastrous flooding 
that now occurs.
  This is a farmer standing in his yard, backgrounded by a 20-foot 
snowbank. Unless you are there and have seen it, have seen the 40- and 
50-mile-an-hour winds with 60 and 80 below windchills that have created 
this kind of situation, you really do not understand how it results in 
this. This is the Wahpeton-Breckenridge area, right on the border of 
the Red River. You will see the downtown area, and you will see that 
the downtown is completely under water.
  This is a picture just north of Fargo, ND, which gives a sense that 
in an area as flat as a table top, the Red River Valley, the flood 
waters expanded to cover virtually everything. This little city of 
Harwood built a ring dike, and you will see that this tiny town of 
Harwood is not inundated, but you will see the rest of the Red River 
Valley is flooded. As the rivers course through Fargo, first Wahpeton, 
then Fargo, and on up to Grand Forks, you see now a picture of downtown 
Grand Forks, ND,

[[Page S3774]]

with a fireman up to his waist in water. This is a downtown street. He 
is fighting a fire that consumed an entire city block. Firefighters, 
experiencing hypothermia, in ice-cold sewage-infested water--because 
the sewers backed up throughout the city, and the system collapsed--
were trying to fight a fire without equipment. A firemen named Randy 
said, ``Normally, when we fight a fire, water is our ally. In this 
case, we did not have water to pump.'' They tried to fight fires in 
multistory buildings, standing up to their waist in water in some 
cases, with fire extinguishers. What a valiant and heroric effort they 
made. But of course this city was inundated.
  I and some others have been in the downtown area of this city in a 
boat. One boat I was in, operated by the Coast Guard, ran into a car--
ran over the hood of the car. The only thing you could see of the car 
was 2 inches of the radio antenna sticking above the water. That is how 
we knew the boat hit a car on a downtown street so deep with the water.
  The reason I come to the floor to show you these pictures and to tell 
you about the people of my region is that it is important, as we have 
done in every other disaster--earthquakes, floods, fire, and 
tornadoes--to extend a helping hand by the American people to this 
region to say we know what is happening to you and we want to help you. 
You are not alone. The rest of the country extends a helping hand to 
try to help you through this crisis.
  It is not about buildings and snowbanks. It is about little boys, 
about grandpas and grandmas, about wage earners, working couples. A 
little boy, 7 years old, sitting in front of an airplane hangar at the 
Grand Forks Air Force Base, lost his home, and was looking at the 
ground dejected when I came to him and visited the shelter where 
thousands of people had been evacuated. The little boy knew his home 
was under water and he had nowhere to go. Not much hope. Eyes filled 
with tears. An older woman named Vi, a wonderful woman, a wonderful 
woman, on the phone when I met her, calling FEMA for help. Her eyes 
were filled with tears talking about what she had lost. So many others 
who have lost so much. Everything they have built, everything they have 
invested in, everything they have saved, inundated and devastated by a 
flood that came and stayed.
  This region is just now finally beginning to start thinking about 
rebuilding. I was on the phone half an hour ago with a fellow who just 
got into his home and is pumping out his basement and trying to assess 
the damage.
  Now, we have an opportunity in this Congress to pass a bill called a 
disaster supplemental appropriations bill. We have done that in the 
past. I, from North Dakota, have been pleased to vote for and support 
disaster supplemental appropriations for people who have been victims 
of earthquakes, floods, fires and tornadoes across this country because 
I think we need to say to them, ``We offer hope, we want to help.''
  Let me say, as the Appropriations Committee begins this process, I am 
enormously grateful for the chairman and the ranking member of that 
committee, Senator Stevens and Senator Byrd, and so many other members 
of the committee who have worked diligently on this issue and worked 
with us and cooperated in a manner that one can only hope for. Thanks 
to them, thanks for the wonderful work they have done in order to put 
together a supplemental appropriations bill. We need to do much more 
because we do not know the entire extent of the damages. In the coming 
days, we will continue to work to do much more, to add money for the 
community development block grants, EDA and others, so we continue to 
appreciate very much the cooperation of the chairman and the ranking 
members and others on a bipartisan basis.
  Mr. President, I am worried now because we were told this morning 
that there are some who want to add four very controversial amendments 
having nothing at all to do with floods, fires, winter storms, and 
disaster. They want to add four very controversial amendments to this 
disaster supplemental bill. When President Clinton came to North Dakota 
last week, one of the things he said is, ``Let us pass a disaster 
supplemental bill, let the Federal Government extend a helping hand, 
and let us make sure that no one in Congress is tempted to add 
extraneous or unrelated amendments that would hold it up.'' Well, I 
worry now, because what we were told this morning is that there are 
those who want to add four amendments, all very controversial, all of 
them or any of which could trip up this bill. Those people, with tears 
in their eyes but hope in their hearts because they feel that we are 
going to extend a helping hand, do not, do not, do not deserve to have 
anyone meddle with this kind of legislation.
  Let us, all of us, decide when disaster strikes, when tragedy visits 
any region of this country, any group of Americans, that we must rise 
as one to say, ``Let us help. You are not alone. Let us be there with 
you.'' That is what this bill is.

  Again, I started by saying I so much appreciate the cooperation of 
the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Stevens, the 
ranking member, Senator Byrd, and so many others, especially the staff 
and others, who worked so hard on this kind of legislation. Our job now 
is to get it up, out, and moving and get it to the President and get it 
signed and get the help moving to these folks in this region of the 
country to say to them, ``We want to help you rebuild. We want to help 
in your recovery. We want to help you rebuild your dreams, your hopes. 
We want to help your family recover.'' That is our responsibility. That 
is our requirement. Let us not, any of us, let us not be tempted to 
decide that this is an opportunity to meddle with some kind of 
amendment that has nothing to do, at all, with disaster and tragedy.
  I, today, call on all of my colleagues, each and every one of my 
colleagues, to decide this disaster supplemental bill ought to be 
passed, we ought to pass it soon, and we ought to get it signed into 
law to offer help and hope to those people who have suffered so much. 
If there are those who have other agendas, there is time, plenty of 
time, to address those agendas--the next day, next week, the next 
month. There is plenty of opportunity to bring any idea, any amendment, 
any agenda they have, to the floor of the Senate. But do not load this 
supplemental appropriations bill with extraneous and unrelated 
controversial amendments that will either stop or slow down the help 
that we intend to send on the way to the victims of this disaster.
  I hope in these coming hours, as we talk through the issues that were 
discussed this morning, proposed amendments to the supplemental 
appropriations bill, I hope that all of us in this Chamber will come to 
the same result: Passing a disaster appropriations bill, a supplemental 
bill, to respond to this disaster is critically important. It ought to 
be done and done now, without anyone in this Chamber using it as an 
opportunity to advance an agenda that has nothing to do with the 
disaster supplemental bill. I call on my colleagues for that level of 
cooperation. I thank all of them for their help. The people I represent 
in this region of the country will be enormously grateful for what this 
Congress will do in extending a helping hand to people who have 
suffered so much.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.

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