[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 14 (Tuesday, February 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H540-H541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TORNADOES WREAK DEVASTATION IN FLORIDA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Northup). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Madam Speaker, I come tonight before this body to 
express my deep concern for what has happened in my congressional 
district this past day. We had one of the great tragedies in the State 
of Florida in three tornadoes that touched down in that area, two of 
them in my district, one in the Kissimmee area, one in Winter Garden, 
one in the district of my colleague (Mr. Mica) in the Sanford area, 
which wreaked deaths that are almost 40 in number, and maybe more, we 
just do not know.
  There were more people I believe killed in those three tornadoes that 
occurred two nights ago in my area than died in Hurricane Andrew, which 
was a huge natural disaster many people are aware of that hit the State 
of Florida a couple years back and caused millions and millions of 
dollars worth of damage.
  It is hard to express the feelings that one sees when you walk out 
into the areas where those tragedies occur. I spent most of the day 
yesterday with our Governor and Senator Mack and others walking through 
the devastation in three counties, Osceola, Orange and Seminole in 
Florida.
  The amount of damage we see in the photographs are probably just as 
real on television or in the newspapers that the Nation can see as 
indeed exists there, but it is very, very hard to express in the 
written words or even over the communicated radio or television word 
the feelings and the emotions that you feel yourself when you go out 
there and see all of that that has been wreaked by God and when you see 
the feelings of the people and you empathize with those who have lost 
loved ones or whose loved ones have been badly injured or who have lost 
possessions that were their life's savings, their life's possessions, 
things that cannot be replaced.
  I know that one of the tornadoes, the most serious one that killed 
the most people, sat down just a short distance from the Silver Spurs 
Rodeo in Kissimmee, where I attended with a German exchange student 
living with me on Saturday. I looked yesterday across the field where 
that was and realized the calmness of that, where little or nothing had 
been disturbed where the Houston Astros have their spring training and 
their ballpark, the stadium where the radio takes place, the area where 
they had a State fair, an open field between where I was standing in 
there, and then right at the moment where I was standing this tornado 
had come down to start a 10-mile rampage across that county.
  It came down and destroyed a convenience store. It left, leaving 
nothing but a handful of concrete blocks. It

[[Page H541]]

took down the power lines along this road on one side, clipping them 
off about two feet or so above, taking the entire lines and the power 
poles across into the woods on the other side.

                              {time}  1815

  Then as it crossed that street, just immediately across almost an 
idyllic setting that I described where the rodeo took place and the 
ballpark is, here was this recreational vehicle park where people come 
with their RVs, these big RVs, and they were shredded, they were torn 
apart, just like many mobile home communities in the area were. People 
say things looked like match boxes. That is not an adequate 
description. Trees were shredded like a shredder shreds them at the 
top. Destruction of these vehicles as well as many of the homes in the 
area were terribly devastated, indescribable, even though one may see 
pictures of them, to see what has actually happened in this setting.
  The bad news was that 10 people or so were killed in that 
recreational vehicle park. Over in a neighborhood a short distance away 
from that of regular single-family homes, there was the same type of 
destruction I had seen from the air after Hurricane Andrew, a narrower 
swath but very similar where the homes were literally destroyed. These 
were well-built, modern homes and people lost everything. Some people 
lost their lives. Not far from there, there was a strip mall shopping 
center with a grocery store, with a McDonald's, with a lot of other 
things in it totally wiped out.
  Fortunately, the tornado occurred at night and so the devastation of 
all of this block and concrete that came down did not kill anyone in 
that mall other than I understand two people in a pub that was still 
open that night in the area. A mobile home park wiped out with a lot 
more people killed. In Orange County, I talked to a couple in a mobile 
home park where the devastation was terrible, another park near Winter 
Garden. They had been very fortunate. Nothing had happened to their 
mobile home. The inside had not been damaged, nothing had fallen off 
the shelves. But you walked right outside to their carport and the cars 
under that carport, which was no longer there, had been crushed, a 
large Ford vehicle whose axle and frame just bent over like some giant 
block had been set on top of it and immediately next door to them, 
which was in a mobile home park only a very short distance of a few 
feet, was another mobile home that had been shredded apart, just 
totally destroyed and a body had been flung in there from a mobile home 
5 or 6 homes down from them where this horrible wreaking had come 
through but God for whatever reason had spared them and their mobile 
home but not someone else.
  I just want to say that all of the people who have helped in that, 
all the compassionate workers need to be thanked, all the people whose 
outpouring of sympathy and concern have been given and the hours and 
hours of work that were put in in the aftermath of that storm deserve a 
lot of thanks and praise. Thank God more people were not killed.

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