[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 16 (Thursday, February 26, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H656-H662]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NATURAL DISASTER IN MAINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1998, the gentleman from Maine

[[Page H657]]

(Mr. Allen) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here today to talk about 
probably the worst natural disaster ever to hit the State of Maine. But 
the ice storm we experienced early in January of this year did not 
affect Maine only; it also affected New York State, Vermont and New 
Hampshire, and we had never seen anything like it.
  I want to use this opportunity to explain what happened in the State 
of Maine. Some of my colleagues, including Congressman Baldacci from 
the Second District of Maine, are here. We expect others to join us in 
a little while. We are trying to convey a sense of what it was like, 
what happened, and why there remains a need for a supplemental 
appropriation to deal with the enormous costs of this particular 
disaster.
  Today, those of us who went through this ice storm in Maine, we think 
of and our hearts are with those people in Florida and those people in 
California who have recently gone through a similar kind of natural 
disaster, those who are dealing with the issues of tornadoes in Florida 
and the floods and storms out in California.
  The ice storm hit Maine on January 7, and the effects of it lasted 
for about two weeks. It was an unusual event, because in fact the storm 
itself did not last that long, but the ice stayed.
  This photograph to my right will give you some sense of what the 
storm looked like. Here we have a utility pole, basically snapped off, 
the wires still attached, and all around are trees laden with ice.
  This storm, of course, extended up into Canada. Many people saw some 
of those Hydro Quebec transmission poles, huge steel girders, simply 
bent over as if they were toothpicks. That is one photograph.
  Here is a second photograph, the same kind of shot, showing a utility 
pole snapped off at the top, branches all around. Those of us who 
traveled throughout the State during the ice storm noticed that the 
hardwood trees all across a very broad band, about a 40 mile band 
running up through the State of Maine, the hardwood trees, many of them 
were snapped off within 25 to 30 feet of the top.
  So this was a storm the effects of which came down. It was not a 
flood, it was not a landslide, but the effects came down from the top. 
As some people said, this was a storm designed by Mother Nature to take 
out the utility infrastructure in Maine, and that is what it did.
  I have a number of experiences that I want to share. The people of 
Maine really pulled together in a very helpful and productive way. Like 
John Baldacci, I went to a great number of shelters. The shelters were 
put together sometimes by the Red Cross, sometimes just by local 
volunteers, but typically they would be set up in a high school 
gymnasium or some large room.
  I will never forget what I saw there, because on one end of the room 
there might be some older people, some of them perhaps on oxygen, who 
were simply trying to cope with the storm. At another end there would 
be smaller children being cared for by their parents. In the middle 
there might be a soccer game, and the kids who were between 6 and 13 
might be playing soccer.
  But what I will always remember are the faces of the teenagers. Many 
of them did not have school for two weeks, and they were there 
volunteering in a shelter, perhaps the first extended volunteer effort 
that they had ever made. They were cutting carrots, carrying blankets, 
setting up cots, making sure the elderly were taken care of, and they 
had a pride and enthusiasm in their faces that really said it all.
  We people of Maine like to think of ourselves as independent people, 
as self-reliant people, but we needed each other during this ice storm, 
and we needed the rest of the country. That is why I will never look at 
television pictures of what happens in Florida or what happens in 
California again without understanding how important it is for people 
in this country to pull together when there is a natural disaster in 
one part of the country. We all need to help each other. It is part of 
what we do as members of this great national community.
  At this time, Mr. Speaker, I will yield to my good friend and 
colleague from the Second District of Maine, Congressman Baldacci. I 
have the small district, and Congressman Baldacci has the largest 
district in Maine, the largest district east of the Mississippi. He had 
more trees, but an equal number of people affected.
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend Congressman Allen 
for taking the leadership on this issue in terms of getting our Members 
here to speak to the other Members, and also to the people throughout 
the United States, so they have a better understanding as to what took 
place in Maine and why there is going to be a need for a supplemental 
appropriation.

  I really appreciate the fact of the point that the gentleman raised 
in terms of what is going on in Florida and California, because our 
hearts certainly go out to those people, seeing the loss of lives, 
children suffering, and the homes going down the mountains, and 
furniture and everything going by the wayside, I think it really is 
something that the gentleman and I and many others in Maine and 
throughout the country certainly do have a lot of concern about, and 
our hearts are with those people.
  I think that especially in our State, I know when the Vice President 
came, and the administrator, James Lee Witt, and also the people from 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, we felt that there was a 
kinship there, and that we were not alone.
  I think of the comments of building it brick by brick, and building 
it home by home and community by community, and letting the people of 
Maine and the country know as they go through these disasters that they 
are not doing it alone, and that the United States of America is 
standing there with us.
  While there have been some concerns about aid or additional aid, I 
think to a lot of people in Maine, and I hope throughout the country, 
just knowing that they are there is a certain level of comfort. 
Because, as the gentleman pointed out earlier and many people know, 
Maine's citizens are hearty and well-prepared for winter storms. But 
nobody could have been prepared for the size and scope of the damage 
that ravaged our infrastructure starting on January 5.
  The devastation in Maine was focused on our utilities, leaving many 
families without power for more than two weeks; trees and utility poles 
snapped like twigs under the weight of four inches of ice that 
accumulated from the mist and slow freezing rain that lasted for four 
days.
  Travel was nearly impossible, not only because of the slick sheets of 
ice covering the road, but because of live wires, tree limbs and 
sometimes whole trees littering the ground. Someone said to me it 
looked like a helicopter had flown too low across the State, snapping 
off the tops of the trees in their rotors.
  Mainers needing to stock up on provisions or seek shelter often found 
they could not leave their homes because the roads, as you see from 
this picture, which is very accurately portraying how impassable the 
roads were. Some did get out, but only by stopping frequently to cut 
away downed trees with chain saws and move them to the side of the 
road.
  Thousands of Mainers gathered in emergency shelters throughout the 
State to get a hot meal and to stay warm. There were countless 
heartwarming stories of people who stood hour after hour in community 
kitchens, chopping and cooking to keep their neighbors fed.
  I remember we were doing a dinner benefit for an individual who had 
bone marrow cancer surgery scheduled, and his health insurance had been 
tapped out, and his family and we pulled together in the community in 
Brewer, and we were putting on a benefit to help raise money for him 
and his family.
  It was during the middle of this power outage, and the family felt 
that they could not go forward, worrying about themselves. Can you 
imagine, bone marrow cancer replacement surgery, but they wanted to not 
take proceeds, and to open it up to the entire community of greater 
Bangor and Brewer for those who did not have power, to welcome them to 
get a hot meal and find community and comradeship.

[[Page H658]]

  We ended up serving over 1,200 people that Sunday night, and I was 
just truly amazed. I should not be amazed, but we know that to be true 
of Maine people, that they set a good example for all of us in how they 
reach out to each other, even though they have problems of their own. 
So it really is something to be very proud of.
  Congressman Allen and I were talking with our other representatives, 
and it is not often that people ask for additional assistance from 
Maine. You know when they are asking for it that they really do need 
it.
  Even when we had the helicopter rides with James Lee Witt and the 
delegation, he was remarking that when he had flown in other states, 
the helicopters were carpeted, warm, and you had to take your coat and 
sweater off. When he was in the whirlybirds in Maine, the drafts were 
coming through and he had to hold his coat to make sure the drafts were 
not coming through. He remarked that you know you really need help when 
people are trying to pull together on their own and showing they are 
doing everything they possibly can do.
  So I am very pleased and proud to join my colleague from Maine, 
Representative Allen, to seek not only support for Maine, but also New 
Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Florida, California, and all of those 
areas that are afflicted by these disasters in this additional 
appropriation, which is going to be so dramatically needed.
  As you know, in agriculture what has happened over the years is in 
the Stafford Act they separated out agriculture, because in some cases 
it may have had better programs to help livestock and agricultural 
crops, to be able to repair from the damage.
  What happened then is that over the years, those dissipated. So what 
we found out is because of lack of definition and law and because of 
not having a particular program, that a lot of our dairy farmers and 
other farmers were actually negatively impacted, because they could not 
qualify for the SBA program that FEMA had put forward, because they 
were not defined as a small business. So they really get a double 
whammy. Not only do they lose their crops and income, but they are 
unable to get into these types of programs for any additional help or 
assistance.
  That is one of the reasons why, working together with you and other 
Members, we need this additional supplemental appropriation, to help 
those that slipped through the crack and be able to address this storm 
of the century.
  So those are a lot of the same concerns that I know the gentleman 
registered and other people have registered, and I really have to say I 
appreciate the photo, because that tells 1,000 stories.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, the photograph 
we have right here is another one that the Portland newspapers took. 
They did an excellent job of covering this storm. They put out a 
supplement titled ``When Maine Froze Over.''
  This photograph says it all, in many ways. There are downed trees, 
downed power lines. There were people that the gentleman talked to and 
certainly that I talked to who could not get out of their homes for 
several days because there were downed power lines and downed branches.
  As the gentleman knows, people in Maine, sometimes we live down 
little dirt roads, and off to the side, where you kind of like to be 
tucked away in the woods sometimes. The result was that when the whole 
electric grid went down, people were without power all through the 
State.
  In fact, that is one thing that might be worth showing right now. We 
have talked about what it was like and how severe this storm was. But 
just to give an example, on January 8 this chart shows 275,000 
households were without power. We have 1.2 million people in the State 
of Maine. At one time or another 600,000 people were without power. 
Some of these people were without power for up to 2 weeks.
  I can tell the Members that from all I heard, that the first night or 
two in the shelter might have been kind of exciting. The seventh and 
eighth nights were not. People who were out of their homes for that 
length of time really, really suffered.
  The other point I think I would make, the stories are wonderful. The 
gentleman heard and I heard stories of people who got generators and 
they put the generator on the back of a pickup truck and drove around 
from home to home, hooking the generator up and running it for about 3 
hours to keep the home warm so that the pipes would not burst. That 
kind of action really prevented a much more severe reaction, because it 
was well below freezing, obviously, and we could have had major 
plumbing problems, in addition to all of these.
  What this chart shows is how gradually, over a period of time, the 
number of customer outages were brought down. But the stunning thing 
about this chart is the number that you begin with, 275,000 households. 
Gradually it was brought down day by day until it was 2,000 on the 23rd 
of January, and then we got hit again, particularly along the coast, 
which had not been hit so hard before, and it jumped right back up to 
over 75,000. So this gives us some sense of the number of people who 
were affected.
  I have to say this, one of the reasons that this number goes down the 
way it does is that we had help from all across the country, all across 
the country. We had new utility poles that were shipped to Maine from 
Oregon and Washington. We had electric crews coming to Maine from 
Delaware and Maryland and New Jersey and North Carolina and South 
Carolina, and Central Maine Power, which normally has just under 100 
utility crews available, at the peak of this storm had 1,000 crews out 
there clearing away the debris, the trees, repairing the wires, doing 
all of those things that they needed to do, 1,000 crews. Obviously, 
most of them came from outside of the State of Maine.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ALLEN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
and I deeply appreciate his efforts in trying to provide this 
opportunity to help share with the American people a remarkable story, 
a remarkable story of crisis, and what we now see is I hope will be an 
equally remarkable story of recovery, and I would thank him for his 
efforts.
  I, too, want to begin by adding my deepest words of condolence to 
those people in central Florida and on the coast of California that are 
now dealing with their tragedies, and certainly our collective hearts 
and thoughts and prayers are with them as they attempt to deal with 
that.
  As the gentleman said, we are certainly anxious to work together with 
their Federal representatives to try to ensure that people across this 
country receive the kind of help, the kind of recovery assistance that 
they not only deserve but, frankly, they need.
  I did not want to come down here and be totally redundant. As I 
listen to the two gentlemen recount their experiences, they sound very, 
very much like my own. Indeed, in my six-county district, about a 7,000 
square mile area which most particularly was hit by the ice storm, more 
than 100,000 homes and businesses and public facilities were affected, 
totally without power.
  As we know, they were not just without power, but in the dead of 
winter for each one of my six counties, as happened in the gentlemen's 
districts, they received a Federal declaration of disaster. What was 
rather interesting to us and made us perhaps somewhat unique, for some 
of my counties it was the third declaration of Federal disaster 
assistance in under 2 years. We feel we have done our part. By this 
time we are getting very good at responding to those, and we would like 
to take some time off before we meet that kind of challenge again.
  It was a story of neighbor helping neighbor. I heard the gentleman 
from Maine (Mr. Baldacci) talk about how those of us who live in the 
northern climes are very proud of our ability to deal with winter. He 
is absolutely correct. I get amused when I come to this wonderful 
capital city and all it has to offer, where a mere prediction of an 
inch or two of snow could actually close facilities, close schools, and 
send people scurrying to the grocery store for provisions.
  There was one time just last year where in my district in about 22 
hours we received over 70 inches of snow. We

[[Page H659]]

thought we had a North American record, but there was a dispute on 
measurement. But by any measure it was a significant amount of snow. 
That did slow us down a little bit, but we were able to overcome and to 
survive.
  But we could not really imagine the difficulties that this ice storm, 
for all of our capabilities, all of our experience, could bring, and 
the challenges that it presented. It has been called the worst ice 
storm of the century. In spite of my gray hair I cannot attest to that 
personally, but I can say that in my lifetime I have never seen 
anything, absolutely nothing, that even begins to compare to this 
storm. The devastation was complete.
  It is popular for people, particularly when they get their utility 
bills, to complain about power companies. Those of us who pay utilities 
understand that. But I think our hearts went out to those brave men and 
women who, as the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) said, came from 
literally all over the country and virtually every power company in the 
United States, sending people to give us a hand.
  I remember one night, or one morning, actually, about 1:30 in the 
morning, I was leaving Plattsburgh, New York for what would normally be 
a 4\1/2\ hour drive back to my hometown in Pierrepont Manor, and I was 
passing through the middle of the Adirondack Mountains, and we were 
getting on top of the ice storm about 10 inches of new storm.

  At 1:30 in the morning I drove by a number of power trucks lined up 
alongside the road, and on the printed panel were the words ``Virginia 
Power Company.'' And I had to believe, as I saw those poor people up 
there in subzero temperatures, in a driving snowstorm, thinking about 
their old Virginia home, they must have thought they died and went 
someplace south of hell. But they never complained, they stood with us.
  One of the more remarkable pictures I saw, and I believe it was taken 
in Maine, and yet I saw signs of similar natures throughout my district 
in response to those Virginia Power Company people, were the signs 
placed on lawns by grateful individuals that said, ``Yes, Santa Claus, 
there is a Virginia,'' just saying thank you to the people of Virginia 
for sharing their recovery people.
  Of course, those are stories that are not just particular to the 
power companies of Virginia, but all across this great Nation. It does, 
I think, reflect very, very remarkably upon Americans' ability and 
willingness to come together in times of challenge.
  When the ice storm struck I was in Indonesia, which climatically 
could not be more opposite from my district. We were on a national 
security trip. I got the call about 2:30 Indonesian time about this 
storm. It was not quite clear yet the dimension of the challenge, 
although it became clear as the hours passed.
  As I tried to make my way back home, which became an Odyssey of 
itself, I went to Australia to try to fly home. When I was there what 
they call a tropical cyclone hit. A community in Townsville, Australia, 
received some 20 inches of rain, was literally washed away, and was 
declared an Australian emergency disaster area. I was beginning to 
wonder if maybe it was me bringing all this bad luck.
  On each stop we got calls as to what was happening. My staff and the 
people in the emergency management office were trying to describe to me 
the kind of devastation they had experienced. I thought I had a good 
idea. But as I got off the plane at Syracuse and drove north and got 
further into the eye of the storm, it really defied description. To see 
it still, with the cleanup, and to understand the challenges ahead, and 
the challenges are many.
  The dairy community, who have particularly unique difficulties, 
because it was not always that the animals died, and they often did, 
but rather that their production capabilities had been severely 
hampered; that because of the inability to milk or the inability to 
store the milk properly, some 14 million pounds of milk had to be 
destroyed, money right out of the dairy farmers' pockets.
  For the maple growers, as the gentlemen know well, in the Northeast, 
a vital part of the economy was destroyed, whole sugar bushes wiped 
out. The fact that it takes 40 years to raise a maple tree to maturity 
so it can be tapped again and become productive, all of these are 
unique circumstances that I know the gentlemen are anxious to work 
together with all of us to try to respond to.
  We do have enormous challenges ahead of us. I do not want to leave on 
a negative note, because I think, for all of the difficulties, the old 
adage that every cloud has a silver lining holds here. That morning I 
woke up when there was more than 70 inches of snow. I asked myself a 
question that I suspect many of us ask, why did my ancestors stay, and 
why are we still here?
  The ice storm asked that question again, but I think in a real way it 
answered it as well. We are here because in this remarkable part of the 
country people care more than they do in most places. They came 
together, as the gentleman said. They worked with the Federal and State 
agencies. But above all else, they worked and cared for each other.
  I want to close on one little story that I think really encapsulates 
the spirit of the people across this entire Northeast region. We, as 
you gentlemen recounted, were visiting a number of shelters. This one 
was located in a volunteer fire company in not even a village, it was 
not big enough to be a village, it was a hamlet with a total population 
of less than several hundred.
  The volunteer firemen and firewomen and womens' auxiliary of that 
community had brought in cots from their own homes, had set up 
generators, and were feeding people. It was crowded and by most 
standards it was not very happy living conditions. There was one fellow 
there who, in spite of the effort being put forward by everyone else, I 
think was working harder than all of them combined. He was over here 
serving food, over here washing dishes. While I was there they brought 
in three people who had been overcome by carbon monoxide by a faulty 
kerosene heater in their home. He was helping administering first aid 
to them. Then he is back over cooking the next meal.
  He finally stopped for a moment and we got to talking. And he started 
talking about the storm, and then another fellow told me, well, that 
man who had been working so hard to help everybody else, just 6 months 
ago had lost his son; and that very same man who was working so hard to 
help everybody else was on the verge of losing his prize horse, his 
breeding horse pair that he simply could not care for in this weather. 
That very same man who had lost his son, was about to lose his 
livelihood, had lost his home in a fire about 2 weeks previous to that. 
Yet this man was there.
  When I asked him about that, he did not want to talk about it. He 
goes, well, these are the people that have it hard.
  That is the spirit of the people of the north country, and through 
northern New York and Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine, that I think 
will carry us through, and how with all of our collective efforts we 
can put them back on the road to recovery. They need it, but I am 
darned sure they deserve it.
  So I want to again thank the gentleman. I am pleased to join with my 
colleagues, and I see the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Bernie Sanders), 
my neighbor from across Lake Champlain, and I am happy to carry a 
little of this message to the American people.
  Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman from New York. That is a terrific 
story. It is that kind of spirit that the storm brought out in people 
all across this region.
  Mr. Speaker, as the storm moved from New York, it went over to 
Vermont. I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders).
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman and my 
colleagues from Maine and New York for putting on this special order, 
and to say that we in Vermont intend to work with the gentlemen as hard 
as we can to try to help some of those people who have been hurt. I 
applaud the gentlemen for all of their efforts.
  I think the stories that we heard from Maine and New York State and 
New Hampshire are certainly repeated in the State of Vermont. I have 
lived in Vermont for 30 years, and I do not recall seeing a weather 
disaster to the extent that we experienced in the northern part of our 
State.

[[Page H660]]

  The storm cut electric power to some 30,000 Vermont customers for as 
long as 10 days. As people know, it gets awfully cold in the State of 
Vermont. People had to make do as best they could without electricity. 
As the gentleman from New York indicated, this was an especial problem 
for our family farmers, who already have more than enough problems to 
try to contend with. This is just another problem on top of many 
others.

                              {time}  1315

  Without electricity to run their milking machines, many farmers 
obviously were unable to milk their cows. Because cows could not be 
milked regularly, there was widespread cases of mastitis developing, 
which is an inflammation of the udder. In some cases the cows died and 
had to be shipped for slaughter.
  Farmers who did not have generators had no way to keep their milk 
cold and with roads impassable, it was not possible to ship the milk to 
producers. Thirty-seven dairy farms in Grand Isle County alone lost 
between 500,000 and 750,000 pounds of milk over the extended power 
outage.
  In my State, and I am sure in upstate New York and in other regions 
of New Hampshire and Maine, family farmers are struggling very hard 
right now just to keep their heads above water and just to maintain 
their farms. This was a blow that they really did not need.
  In terms of maple production, and obviously Vermont is well-known for 
maple syrup production, our maple producers were hit hard as well. 
Thousands of acres of sugar bushes were destroyed by severe icing. The 
storm is expected to cause a 10 percent drop in Vermont maple syrup 
production resulting in losses of millions of dollars to the State.
  Farmers were not only hurt, but local communities were hurt. In the 
City of Burlington, we saw extensive damage to our trees. Burlington 
has a reputation of being one of the greenest cities in America and 
there has been substantial damage to our trees.
  Utility losses due to down lines and poles total in excess of $10 
million, and the estimate is that farm losses totaled nearly that 
amount as well. But like the representatives from Maine and upstate New 
York and New Hampshire, Vermonters came together as we have not seen 
for many, many years, helping each other and doing the best they could 
to weather the storm.
  Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with my colleagues from Maine 
and the rest of the Northeast to make certain that we do everything 
that we can to try to help those people and those communities that were 
hurt. And I want to congratulate my colleagues from Maine for calling 
this special order.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. 
Sanders) for his comments. We are back to this photograph that I had up 
here before, just again to show the type of damage inflicted by the 
storm. I want to take just one minute to give people a sense of how 
different this ice storm was than anything that had ever hit the State 
of Maine in the past.
  This chart shows the comparison of the ice storm of 1998 with 
Hurricane Bob in 1991 and Hurricane Gloria in 1985. Those are the two 
other major, major storms that took out electric power.
  In phase one of the ice storm of 1998, 340,000 customers lost power. 
In phase two, it was 75,000. So we have a total of well over 400,000. 
Just about half that for the two prior hurricanes.
  But look at the feet of cable that needed to be replaced. Two million 
feet of cable line needed to be replaced as a result of this storm, 
whereas only 52,000 feet of cable needed to be replaced with Hurricane 
Bob.
  We had 2,600 telephone utility poles that had to be replaced. 
Telephone utility poles do not snap easily. That is pretty basic. We 
have never seen anything like this at all.
  Transformers, 4,000 had to be replaced compared to 158 when Hurricane 
Bob struck in 1991.
  The number of customers who reported an outage, here it was basically 
just about 650,000. We have 1.2 million people in the State of Maine. 
That was 649,000 customers or households. One hundred twenty thousand 
by comparison with Hurricane Bob.
  There simply has been nothing like this in the past in Maine. And as 
I said at the beginning, this looked as if, it appears to be a storm 
designed by Mother Nature to take out the electric power grid.
  One of the frustrations with the existing FEMA law and the existing 
resources are that the utility ratepayers in Maine may be looking at a 
substantial rate increase to pay for this storm because we have 
investor-owned utilities in the State of Maine and not community-owned 
electric utilities. And the result is that part of what we are asking 
for is some relief for those ratepayers.
  We are not suggesting that investor-owned utilities should make a 
profit from an ice storm. They cannot. They will not. We will not let 
it happen. But it is fair when disaster relief would be available for 
certain kinds of customers from rate increases that it be available for 
customers in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York who are looking 
at significant rate increases simply to pay for a natural disaster that 
is unlike anything we have ever seen before.
  That is really the reason why we are here talking about this storm, 
making sure that people all across this country understand that there 
is a great need for a supplemental appropriations bill to provide 
additional disaster relief, not just for Maine and New Hampshire and 
Vermont and New York, but also from what we can say on our television 
every day now in Florida and in California.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, let me say one more thing. I just want to 
praise the media in Maine. The newspapers provided extensive coverage, 
but in addition to the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army doing 
everything they could, the radio and TV talk shows basically devoted 
substantial time, in a couple of cases around-the-clock coverage, so 
that people could call in and tell their stories and ask for help.
  That was true of radio and TV talk shows. The Portland TV stations 
coordinated on a telethon to raise money for the Red Cross. There was a 
terrific response. And all across the State in Bangor and throughout 
the State, people really pulled together.
  So we can be proud of Maine, but we also know that we need some 
assistance from the rest of the country. With that, I yield back to the 
gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci).
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
Allen) for his comments. As he has pointed out, in the stories that 
dealt with the media in particular, because our Maine emergency signal 
went down, our Maine Emergency Broadcasting Company was not able to 
televise and to give radio signals and broadcasts and it was the 
private enterprise radio stations, and particularly in central Maine 
and WABI radio and Voice of Maine, that were actually providing sort of 
Uncle Henry's Guide to what was available, where it was available, and 
pointing up the resources and matching up the resources.
  So if somebody called in and needed a generator or somebody needed 
wood or needed some electrical help to do some work on the cables or 
whatever, somebody else would call in and say I can do that; I know who 
can do that.
  We had so many, and it would take from here until the end of this 
legislative session to go through everybody, but particularly as the 
gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) has mentioned, the media and private 
enterprise stepped forward in terms of making sure that our citizens 
got that information.
  Particularly, I have to thank the Bangor Daily News, because they 
were continually putting on a scroll of the 800 numbers, the points of 
contact, and something that people needed, because they did not have 
television and in many cases there was no electricity, it was only 
radio that they had. But the daily newspaper was able to put out this 
information.

  I kind of remarked earlier, the first night it can be kind of 
romantic without power. But after a while it wears thin. My son, who is 
used to looking at the TV and talking to me, actually had to look at me 
and talk to me. There were some benefits to not having the power. But 
after a while, it sort of wore thin.
  People were melting snow to make showers. They were washing dishes 
that way. And as was mentioned, they were going around and the 
unfortunate

[[Page H661]]

thing, again, as was pointed out, is that a lot of the Federal programs 
and resources are not set up to take care of the kind of ice storm that 
happened in Maine because of the way it hit and what it hit and because 
it was able to go into the heart of the transmission system and deny 
all of the citizens of the State of Maine power for up to 2 weeks.
  We do not reimburse investor-owned utilities because we do not 
reimburse small businesses for their losses. We give them low-interest 
loans. But in this case we do not even give them low-interest loans. We 
say you do not qualify. The regulatory body says we are going to run it 
through the rate base so that people who are out of work, not able to 
get income, businesses who have lost income, dairy who has lost 
livestock and production and milk thrown out, now all of the sudden 
they get their electric bill and they are going to get an additional 
kick because it will be run through the rate base.
  Mr. Speaker, that is just really not fair. And that is one of the 
reasons why we are working hard on a supplemental appropriation to pick 
up what slipped through the crack and to make sure that people have the 
opportunity, as the Federal program calls for it, rebuilding their 
lives so that we can stand together as a country and a community and as 
people.
  I am so proud to be able to work with the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
Allen) and other Members in the Congress to bring this about. And I 
hope, Mr. Speaker, that we are able to do that before too much time and 
that we are able to bring that supplemental emergency assistance 
program.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for this time and I 
appreciate this opportunity.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues for 
being part of this special order. I want to end this with a small story 
about Bridgeton, Maine. I went up to Bridgeton, Maine, which was hit as 
hard as any other part of the State of Maine, and there was a woman 
there who owns a restaurant. She kept it open 24 hours a day for over a 
week to help feed the utility workers.
  The utility workers, when I went and talked with them at CMP, the 
central main power station there, they came from New York and they came 
from North Carolina and South Carolina and Virginia and Delaware and 
Maryland, and the people of Maine were very grateful.
  Maine people pulled together. We dealt with the worst natural 
disaster in our experience. We recognized that we are one community in 
our State and we pulled together and acted that way. But we also know 
that this country is one community, that we have to help each other and 
that that is why we will be asking for assistance through a 
supplemental appropriations bill.
  Mr. McHUGH. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Maine 
reserving this special order so that we may speak about the devastating 
ice storm which swept through the northeast last month and paralyzed 
most of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Northern New York. It is 
ironic that as we speak today regarding our experiences from the storm 
which crippled our Congressional Districts, Florida has just endured a 
terrible tragedy with loss of life and California continues to be 
subjected to punishing El Nino storms. It is painfully obvious this 
winter's severe weather will test our abilities, patience and 
pocketbooks.
  In my New York 24th Congressional District alone, the storm toppled 
thousands of trees, grounded power wires, created flooding and left 
more than 100,000 homes, businesses, schools and other public and 
community facilities without power and communications in the dead of 
winter. The devastation was so severe that all six of my affected 
counties were declared federal disaster areas. For several of these 
counties, this was their third federal disaster declaration in less 
than two years.
  For those of us privileged to represent the northeastern parts of the 
United States, we take a special pride in our ability to weather Mother 
Nature's onslaughts in the winter months. When a few inches of snow 
brings our nation's capital to a screeching halt, we collectively 
chuckle and boast that where we come from, it takes a lot more than a 
little snow to shut us down. Well, Mother Nature apparently felt is was 
time to bring us down a few pegs and so came the Ice Storm of `98.
  When the ice storm struck, I was in Southeast Asia with some of my 
colleagues from the National Security Committee on an official trip. My 
staff quickly alerted me to the increasingly grave situation back home 
and the challenges the people of the North Country were facing. My 
first thought was to immediately get on a flight and return to the 
district. After extensive discussions with my staff, the twelve hour 
time difference forcing me to make calls well into the wee hours of the 
morning, I decided that initially I could do my constituents more good 
during those critical first hours of the recovery effort by working the 
telephone from Jakarta, Indonesia than spending the next 24 hours in 
the air. I immediately placed phone calls to our county emergency 
coordinators and several State legislators to find out where their 
needs were and what help they needed. I then placed a call to Federal 
Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt to make him aware 
of the critical situation in the North Country. I also urged he act 
expeditiously on Governor George Pataki's forthcoming request for 
federal assistance. That phone call to Mr. Witt gave me some piece of 
mind because he assured me his people were already on the ground and 
would give the Governor's request for federal disaster assistance his 
strongest consideration. True to his word, President Clinton declared 
my six counties eligible for federal disaster assistance less than 
twelve hours after receiving Governor Pataki's request. This 
declaration freed up a number of federal resources for disaster 
assistance and recovery efforts for this we are very thankful.
  I finally left Jakarta to return to New York, but had to make stops 
in three countries and wait out a monsoon before I was able to begin 
the long journey back. One local newspaper said I went from disaster to 
disaster. The devastating weather I encountered in Sydney, Australia 
could not come close to the destruction I found when I go home.
  It has been called the worst ice storm of the century. I am not sure 
if that is an accurate statement from a meteorological perspective, but 
I can tell you that in my lifetime in Northern New York State, there 
has been nothing, absolutely nothing, which can begin to remotely 
compare to this ice storm. The devastation wrought by this storm 
boggles the mind. Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, the primary utility 
serving these six counties, saw its entire distribution system in the 
region destroyed. The company estimates it will cost approximately $125 
million for the clean up; the other utility serving the area, New York 
State Electric and Gas, estimates its storm-related costs at between 
$35-40 million. These costs could ultimately be passed along to the 
consumer. Another legacy of the storm.
  Ice, in some places four and five inches thick, coated trees and 
power lines. If the weight of the ice didn't bring the lines down, the 
falling branches did. Then, of course, the poles snapped. I witnessed 
destruction that can only be compared to that of a war zone. In fact, 
that military description was the most appropriate to describe the 
damage. It has been reported that when Vice President Gore toured 
Maine, he remarked that it looked like a reverse neutron bomb: the 
people are left standing but everything else is destroyed. In a matter 
of hours, all of Northern New York went black. For many people, it 
would be another two to three weeks before their power was restored.
  In addition to the massive power outages, the fallen tree limbs, 
poles and utility lines, and ice covered roads, movement throughout the 
North Country came to a virtual standstill. Nothing moved and what ever 
did move, slid. The paralyzation of Northern New York was complete. 
With daytime temperatures rarely pushing past the freezing mark and 
nighttime temperatures occasionally dipping below zero, the discomfort 
level rocketed off the scale. A power outage which in the spring, 
summer or fall would have been a major disruption in lifestyles, in 
January became a matter of life or death. And for nine souls, it was a 
matter of death. Our hearts go out to their families at this most 
difficult time and we shall keep them in our prayers.
  The loss of electric power had enormous repercussions simply beyond 
the inconvenience factor. As the third largest dairy producer in the 
nation, Northern New York is the state's largest dairy region. Without 
power, dairy farmers were unable to milk their herds. Those with 
generators--an instrument which, as the hours without power turned into 
days and then weeks, became one of the region's most sought-after and 
precious commodities--who were able to milk frequently had to dump 
their milk because the roads were impassable and the milk trucks were 
unable to get through to pick up their product. Those lucky enough to 
be able to milk and get their product to the producer were frequently 
confronted with the milk plant being without power. Although final 
figures are still being compiled, early estimates indicate 
approximately 14 million pounds of milk were dumped. In addition, 
because of their inability to milk the herds, or to milk on a normal 
schedule, many cows contracted mastitis, an illness which if not 
treated, can kill the cow. In many instances, the illness is treatable, 
but it will be many weeks, if not

[[Page H662]]

months, before the cow is back on a regular production cycle. In the 
meantime, the farmer has lost critical production.
  Our initial hope that the federal disaster declaration would speed 
assistance to our farmers was soon shattered as it became clear the 
Farm Service Agency's primary form of assistance was low interest 
loans. I was shocked. Federal programs to replace livestock losses or 
dairy production are either expired, do not apply to dairy farmers or 
non-existent. To these dairy farmers, many of whom are already 
operating on the margins due to a 20 year low in milk prices they are 
paid, the low interest loan program wasn't even an option. They simply 
can't afford it. Loans ain't gonna cut it for these folks.
  The situation reminds me of a story of a guy who goes to see the 
doctor because he's not feeling very well. The doctor takes some tests 
and tells him to check back in a week. The guy goes back to see the 
doctor and the doctor tells him he has good news and he has bad news 
for him. The guy says, ``Gosh, I guess I should have the good news 
first to prepare me for the bad news.'' The doctor says, ``Okay, the 
good news is: you have three days to live.'' The guy says, ``if that's 
the good news, then what on earth is the bad news.'' The doctor says, 
``the bad news is: I've been looking for you since yesterday to tell 
you.'' The story reminds me of the North Country right now because 
there hasn't been a lot of good news for the folks up there lately and 
what news there has been, hasn't been that good.
  The maple syrup industry is also a critical component of the North 
Country's economy. The ice wreaked havoc on our maple trees causing 
either complete destruction or such severe damage the trees are 
effectively useless to the owner. Once again, final figures are still 
being compiled, but losses will run into the millions. I ask my 
colleagues to remember that it can take upwards of 40 years for a maple 
tree to reach maturity. In short, the North Country's maple syrup 
industry is crippled for the foreseeable future. To those who savor the 
simple pleasure of real maple syrup on your Sunday morning pancakes, 
get used to the imitation stuff.
  The bushes which produce maple sugar, another important North Country 
commodity, were destroyed by the ice. In addition, Christmas tree farms 
and other tree farms sustained crippling damage. It will take years, if 
not decades, before the trees are restored and production reaches pre-
ice storm levels. For these tree farmers, their livelihoods are as 
flattened and splintered as their trees.
  Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on itemizing the destruction caused by 
this storm. Suffice it to say, it is widespread and long-term.
  Further compounding the suffering many of my constituents have 
endured in the wake of this storm is the lack of Federal assistance 
programs available to many of our storm victims. Although the initial 
response to the disaster by the Federal government was swift, and at 
this point I should like to commend the Federal Emergency Management 
Agency (FEMA) and its New York State counterpart, the State Emergency 
Management Office (SEMO), for their efforts, it has become evident 
there are significant gaps and shortfalls in assistance programs, 
especially those for dairy farmers and small businesses.
  In cooperation with my colleagues from the three other states 
targeted by this storm, we are identifying those areas most in need of 
assistance and working with Appropriations Committee staff to craft the 
appropriate language to meet those needs. Of top priority will be a 
dairy indemnity program to reimburse the farmers for the milk they 
lost. In addition, a livestock indemnity program is needed to help 
finance the loss of livestock from the storm, be it from weather or 
from illness caused by the power outages. Another priority will be a 
program to finance the replacement of trees destroyed by the storm. In 
the aftermath of this disaster, it is readily apparent that many 
Federal assistance programs are simply not adequate to meet their 
needs. I intend to work closely with the members of the three other 
state delegations and the appropriate committees to institute these 
changes.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not wish to close these remarks on a note of doom, 
gloom and despair. I am immensely proud of the North Country's response 
to the storm. Once again, in the face of another adversity thrown at us 
by Mother Nature, and I must admit, this is starting to get old, the 
residents of the North Country pulled together and weathered the storm, 
figuratively and literally. In instance after instance, communities 
rallied together. Neighbors took care of neighbors, strangers came 
together and worked together as a team. Community and civic groups 
turned their posts or clubhouses into shelters or food pantries. 
Without being asked, these organizations took it upon themselves to 
come to their communities' assistance. Many incurred costs of several 
thousands of dollars in renting or operating generators or purchasing 
food. I am hopeful that all of these costs will ultimately be 
reimbursed. In short, it was a community effort and in a strange 
manner, it may well have been the North Country's finest hour.
  Now that the immediate urgency of the crisis has passed, we must work 
together to ensure that all those who sustained losses from the storm 
are afforded the assistance necessary to begin the rebuilding process 
and be made as whole again as possible. The mission before us will be 
difficult, at times frustration, and certainly long, but I am hopeful 
that with the goodwill of the Members of this body, we will soon 
accomplish this task.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish to once again thank the gentleman from Maine for 
this time and hope the lessons learned from this experience will better 
prepare us for nature's next challenge.

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