[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 21, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H8448-H8449]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            HURRICANE FLOYD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield a moment to my 
colleague from New Jersey if he has more to add.
  Mr. ROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  I just wanted to say that we have people without drinking water who 
must boil their drinking water and still people without power or phone 
service. So this is, as my colleague knows, because he has spent so 
much time over the last few days working on this, this is a real 
tragedy. The local people, the police, fire, ambulance, emergency 
services, the people in the power companies and phone companies have 
done their best to rally.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the time. Together, we in 
Congress can help these people and rebuild our communities.

[[Page H8449]]

  Mr. HULSHOF. My colleague is absolutely right, and I thank him for 
those remarks, and I am sure the people of New Jersey appreciate it.
  Our hearts do go out to victims in other States. New Jersey has been 
hard hit. Many States in the East have been hard hit. As the flood 
waters receded across New Jersey, the death toll from Hurricane Floyd 
increased in our State. Surging flood waters caused hundreds of 
millions of dollars of damage and claimed four lives.
  As officials struggled to cope with the thousands of refugees and 
families left to deal with contaminated drinking water and total 
devastation, in many cases, of their homes, we also have to deal with 
highway closures and lingering phone and power outages, which interfere 
with the ability to deal with the problems that families face.
  Eight of the counties hardest hit by Floyd have been declared federal 
disaster areas, including three counties in my district in Central New 
Jersey, including Middlesex, Mercer, and Somerset Counties. In a number 
of places the flooding exceeded the boundaries of the hundred-year 
flood.
  Over the past few days, I have seen firsthand the damage that the 
hurricane has caused. In Lambertville, for example, I toured the middle 
school, where water had flowed through the school. Mud covered the 
floors. There were floating school supplies and overturned and floating 
desks through the building. Officials there told me they expect the 
cleanup effort to cost up to $1.5 million just in that one school.
  In Branchburg, I have watched as families shoveled mud from their 
living areas, their shops, their basements, their belongings ruined, 
and homes permanently damaged. There was water everywhere but none to 
drink, as flooding contaminated drinking water sources. Still many 
people are without drinking water. They are advised to boil water. More 
than 200,000 residents in my district were found without water.
  The scenes of devastation, however, did bring forth tails of heroic 
rescues. Many men and women devoted many exhausting hours to the rescue 
efforts, and they are to be commended. In this time of devastation, it 
gives us some comfort to think of the men and women of New Jersey who 
thought first of their neighbors. This inextinguishable spirit of the 
citizens of New Jersey has burned brightly in the days of this 
disaster, and it will continue to burn brightly. But that will not 
restore the damage caused by Hurricane Floyd.
  There will be time in the coming weeks to talk about lessons learned 
from the flooding, and there are lessons to be drawn from this, lessons 
about the effect of loss of open space on flooding. But for now our 
attention goes to assisting the victims of the flood and to extolling 
the work of the rescue and repair efforts of those involved in those 
efforts.
  While the federal disaster declaration is a substantial step forward 
in helping central New Jersians start to put their lives back together, 
more assistance is necessary. I urge my colleagues to join me in 
supporting a legislative package to provide relief to the citizens that 
have been hurt and whose lives have been turned upside down by 
Hurricane Floyd.

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