[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 136 (Friday, October 8, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H9648-H9649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
             NORTH CAROLINA IN AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE FLOYD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, the sunshine is shining in eastern North 
Carolina, the rivers have crested, and the water has receded. People 
are beginning to have a sense of hope. But at the same time, there is 
great devastation as a result of the floods of the century having 
occurred in eastern North Carolina.
  More than 32 counties were affected by Hurricane Floyd. Out of the 32 
counties, there was severe flooding in at least 20 or more of those 
counties. Fourteen of those counties happen to be in my district. At 
the last count, more than 54,000 persons had called FEMA's telephone 
on-line intake service indicating they needed service. At the peak of 
this hurricane, there were more than 46,000 individuals huddled in 
various makeshift shelters throughout the district. People were 
sleeping in cars, neighbors took other people in, and roads were in 
great devastation. The lives that were lost, the last count as of last 
Friday, there were 48 persons who were dead in North Carolina as a 
result of Hurricane Floyd. In fact, some 66 from the East Coast, 
including persons who died in Pennsylvania and New York as well as in 
Virginia.
  This hurricane has brought great devastation and has taken the lives 
of a lot of people. Teshika Vines I have here is one of those 
casualties, but her story is the story of a neighbor helping neighbors. 
The story is that her grandfather had taken she and three other members 
of the family out on a boat to safety, saw their neighbors and took 
onto their boat four other persons. When the boat landed on the shore, 
it was missing six persons. The grandfather and Teshika, one person 
from

[[Page H9649]]

the other family, and only one person from Teshika's family still 
lives. Actually towns became rivers. We have the scene of Tarboro here. 
East Tarboro was completely flooded. That was the area that the 
President visited, in that area. The waters have now receded, yet those 
businesses cannot function because they stayed underwater so long. 
Right next to East Tarboro is a town called Princeville. Princeville is 
a town that was founded by newly freed slaves in 1884, became 
incorporated in 1885, in fact was the first town of American free 
slaves to be incorporated. That whole town was flooded and stayed 
underwater at least 10 days. That whole town is lost. Forty percent of 
Edgecombe County was lost. Princeville is not the only community. There 
was Kinston. Much of that town was lost. It is a town of 35,000 people. 
Downtown, they had six hotels. Only two were not flooded. Many of the 
shopping centers in Rocky Mount were flooded. Water systems were closed 
down. Wastewater systems became nonfunctional and may not function for 
many years to come unless they are really improved.
  Our infrastructure also was greatly damaged. This one is the road of 
301 which was the main highway going north and south before we had 
Interstate 95. I-95 was flooded. I-95 is where people go as they go to 
Disney World. You can imagine, they did not build I-95 inadequately. 
But I-95 was flooded from Emporia to Benson. This is 301, the road that 
used to be the main north and south thoroughfare. This big gaping hole 
also undergirded the Amtrak trains, the water system. We have a 
tremendous amount of devastation that happened to our roads, to our 
water system, our wastewater system, to the houses. It is reported more 
than 35,000 houses had some impact from actually the storm. Some 10,000 
houses are reported to be uninhabitable, that they will be destroyed. 
They are nonfunctional to the extent they need to be destroyed. There 
was great, great devastation and a need for rebuilding and 
reconstruction.
  This week, this floor, and I want to express appreciation to my 
colleagues, unanimously supported a resolution that said they 
empathized, sympathized with the people affected by Hurricane Floyd and 
they went on record as saying, further than just sympathy, they wanted 
to provide support. They will have that opportunity very, very soon. 
Hopefully there will be an emergency spending bill that will be 
adequate not only to respond to North Carolina's needs but the East 
Coast, from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, as 
well as North Carolina.
  North Carolina alone has a need for $2.5 billion just for emergency. 
The agricultural needs in North Carolina are said to be $1.3 billion. 
We have erosion of land. We have lost more than 2.3 million chickens. 
More than 120,000 pigs were destroyed. Wildlife was destroyed. Horses 
were destroyed. There was a tremendous loss in terms of forestry, an 
untold amount of loss in terms of fisheries. As if that were not 
enough, the impact that was made on the environment and the water 
system, the fertilizers, the poisons, the pollutants that are in the 
water. So in addition to having structural loss and having loss of 
human life, we also have the potential of environmental loss that would 
be there for years to come. It is yet not known how much there would 
be.
  I want to keep before my colleagues this urgent need of the citizens 
in eastern North Carolina for emergency relief certainly, and hopefully 
we will do the right thing for them. But beyond the emergency relief, 
there needs to be a commitment on the part of this Congress that we 
will rebuild and restore, we will put the kind of resources, bring some 
sort of normalcy and a sense of community as we do with our foreign 
investment, that here is an opportunity to respond to American people 
as we do, appropriately I think, in foreign countries. We need a plan 
that says not only do we sympathize and empathize, but we recognize 
that we have a commitment to restore their lives and their communities.

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