[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 109 (Tuesday, September 6, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9625-S9630]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HURRICANE KATRINA
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wanted to spend a few minutes this
afternoon if I could and express my sympathy and the sympathy of my
family, I know the sympathy of all of us in this Chamber, to the
victims of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding that occurred
particularly in Louisiana. I thank the leadership for giving us an
opportunity today to express ourselves as a national body about this
devastation that has occurred. There will be a lot of discussion about
what happened, what did not happen, the shortcomings of our Government
in responding in a timely fashion to this situation. But today is a
time to offer our prayers and our sincere and deep sympathies to those
who have suffered as much as they have.
There will be hearings next week. The President, I gather, has
announced an investigation at the executive branch level. I think an
independent investigation is probably the best way to proceed. Having
the Government investigate itself is interesting but not
[[Page S9626]]
always the best way to get to the bottom of the information we ought to
have about what happened. Because we will have events like this--
hopefully nothing of this magnitude--again. There will be other events
that require our Nation to respond far more expeditiously, far more
thoughtfully, far more humanely than we did in this situation.
First, it obviously goes without saying that the thoughts and prayers
of all of us and the entire country are with the people of the Gulf
region at this hour. This is a disaster of unspeakable and
unprecedented proportions, and we are still struggling to comprehend
the magnitude of this event. Certainly the attacks of September 11,
2001 come to mind in terms of the damage done to life and property.
At the same time the devastation wrought by this act of nature is
quantitatively and qualitatively different. As we speak here this
afternoon, an entire American city, between a half a million and a
million people, is uninhabitable. Its mayor tells us it will remain in
that state for many months to come. Hundreds are believed to be dead
and he predicts that the number will soar in the days to come--possibly
into the thousands.
In Mississippi over 100 are known dead. According to that State's
Governor, the destruction of the Gulf communities such as Biloxi,
Gulfport, and Bay St. Louis is nearly total. Let me be clear and repeat
what I said. I said destruction, not damage. Thousands of homes and
places of business are a total loss and will have to be completely
rebuilt in the coming months. I know that our colleague, Senator Lott
of Mississippi, lost his own home. Nearly a million homes in his State
have been without power for days.
In Alabama more than 400,000 homes and businesses have lost power.
Mobile and the surrounding environs suffered severe flooding. In
western Florida the situation is similar. The Presiding Officer
certainly knows of what I speak. Hundreds of thousands were without
power and with scant access to the basic necessities of life--clean
water, sanitary facilities, food, and shelter.
The upshot of all this destruction and damage is that millions of our
fellow American citizens are now literally refugees in their own
country.
We don't like to use the word refugee and I certainly have stayed
away from it. But as you watch pictures of people walking along
railroad tracks, along highways, of people perched on rooftops waiting
patiently for aid, and enduring deprivation that we have never seen in
this country on such an immediate and immense scale as we have in this
event, then certainly the word refugee is appropriate in these
circumstances.
We are receiving reports of looting, shooting, and chaos that has
interfered with rescue and relief efforts. We all struggle to remember
a comparable amount of destitution and destruction in our Nation. And
so far we struggle in vain in that effort. We cannot believe what we
are seeing is taking place in our own Nation, our beloved America.
Nothing like this has ever happened in the United States.
And we are reminded as well that America is not a loose collection of
States or regions. We are a single indivisible nation. What happens in
one State or region is felt all across our country in the concerns of
loved ones, the charitable contributions, and the secondary
deprivations that all Americans will experience as a result of this
catastrophe.
The Gulf region is a principal source of domestic and foreign goods
that are consumed by all of us--natural gas, oil, lumber, poultry,
coffee, and bananas. It is the departure point for the export of
billions of dollars worth of goods made in our own Nation--corn,
soybeans, wheat, and other commodities.
The Army Corps of Engineers tells us it could take as long as 6
months to drain the water from the basin in which the city of New
Orleans lies. It will take months if not years before that city and
other areas damaged by this hurricane and flood return to some
semblance of normalcy. The aid package we considered last Thursday
evening is the first installment of emergency aid for the national
Government but by no means will it be the last. This Senator pledges
his support for delivering all appropriate aid as expeditiously as
possible to those in need in the gulf region. This is a time requiring
unity and urgent action.
There will be a time, as I said earlier, in the days and weeks to
come to examine what went wrong. And a lot went wrong before as well as
after this hurricane and flood.
Our citizens are already asking the tough questions about what we
could have done to prevent the full extent of this tragedy. They are
outraged, not just in the Gulf area. I spent yesterday in my home State
of Connecticut. I went to the State armory in that city to help
organize food assistance packages that were being shipped to the Gulf
region. I can tell you people in the city of Hartford, as well as
people throughout my State are outraged and appalled by what they saw
as incompetence and indifference at the very highest levels of our
national Government. And I think they are right to be incensed and to
demand better action and answers to what occurred.
They want to know why there has been a 44-percent cut in funds for
flood prevention in New Orleans since 2001, even though a 2001 FEMA
report told us that a hurricane flooding New Orleans was one of the
three most likely major disasters facing the United States, along with
a terrorist attack in the city of New York.
Citizens want to know why the administration, despite promising there
would be no net loss of wetlands, has allowed their development,
including those in the Gulf region, which are better flood prevention
mechanisms than any dam or levy built by man.
Citizens all across this country want to know why, despite knowing
for days before the hurricane that it could cause major devastation, it
took so long for the Federal agencies to mobilize relief, rescue, and
law and order operations.
Citizens want to know all across our Nation whether nationwide spikes
in the price of gasoline are normal under these circumstances or the
result of price gouging by unscrupulous profiteers who always stand
ready to take advantage of tragedy. And they want to know that our
President and Attorney General are doing everything possible to prevent
price gouging.
These are very important issues--not the only ones--but they are some
of the ones being asked by our fellow citizens at this very hour.
As I said a moment ago, now is the time for us to pull together as a
nation to support one another, to do what we can to help the people of
the Gulf region get their lives back to some semblance of normalcy.
Eight days after the hurricane first hit the gulf region and 9 days
after it became a storm stronger than the New Orleans levees could
hold, there are still critical needs that must be addressed
immediately.
Right now as we speak here today in this Chamber, New Orleans is
coated with a layer of toxic sewage that endangers the health of both
those left stranded and the relief workers themselves. It has been
estimated that there are thousands of bodies that have yet to be
recovered on the streets and bayous of Jefferson Parish. There are
public safety concerns. There is not enough food and water. And the
city remains without power.
They need our help now, and they need more than the direct assistance
we have just begun to deliver. Last week, as I mentioned earlier, this
body approved over $10 billion in emergency aid. That is a fraction of
what will be required in the coming months and years to rebuild the
lives and communities affected by this tragedy.
Our first concern must, of course, be the health of those who still
remain.
We need to guarantee all displaced victims access to comprehensive
health care coverage, to Medicaid, including waiving residency, assets,
and copayments requirements. Those who survive remain at great risk for
illness and disease. They need and deserve medical care.
We need to provide resources to help the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and local public health authorities monitor and respond
to disease outbreaks and to help treat victims. We need to work closely
with the pharmaceutical industry to get badly needed medication to
these affected areas.
We need to make sure that this is a long-term effort. We must provide
funding for continued monitoring of
[[Page S9627]]
those in the region, as exposure to environmental hazards could have
lifelong consequences.
We should invest in the public safety net and support mental health
providers to help victims cope emotionally with the disaster. We need
to offer Federal support for communities and tax incentives for
individuals to incorporate displaced victims.
We also must provide basic services and support for those who now
literally live as refugees in other States.
The New Orleans school district has been decimated. Only 2,500 of the
7,000 employees have been accounted for. The central office has been
destroyed, and all of the school records in New Orleans are gone.
Thankfully, there are over 30 cities that have stepped forward to
take in the 20,000 children who have so far been identified as in need.
We have to get direct financial assistance to the school districts
absorbing these students so they can adequately care for them in
addition to the students they already serve.
We also must provide financial assistance for college students as
they relocate to other universities and provide incentives for those
universities that have already offered students a new home.
And we must make sure that victims are not penalized by rules,
regulations, and responsibilities that may work well under normal
circumstances but can be debilitating in times of an emergency.
We should waive income requirements for Head Start displaced
children. We should give States that have offered childcare to refugees
flexibility on their subsidy payments. And we should waive TANF work
requirements for victims of the hurricane and flood.
We should also offer tax relief to victims so they can begin
rebuilding their lives and expand and extend unemployment assistance so
they can get back on their feet more quickly.
We should mobilize volunteers through AmeriCorps and other
organizations in a unified rebuilding effort. And we should encourage
private industry to participate with their own resources and expertise.
We also need to guarantee that the brave military personnel who
continue to carry out operations in the gulf region with characteristic
precision and professionalism will have all the resources that they
need.
Last week, the U.S. Coast Guard crews rescued over 22,000 people in
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, but we are not properly supporting
them, in my view. Their costs in both operations and reconstruction are
estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and they are being
forced to divert funds from their already strapped 2005 accounts. This
should be simply unacceptable to all of us.
We also must start discussing long-term solutions. We must be
prepared as a nation to prevent or mitigate the effects of tragedies of
this magnitude. We must invest in viable and sufficient flood control
projects. We must examine building codes to consider if they can be
strengthened to limit damage in the future. Perhaps most importantly,
we must develop disaster relief plans throughout our Nation so that we
will not again be caught off guard as we were this time.
We must restore the ability of the Federal Government to respond to a
disaster of this magnitude whether manmade or natural.
During the 1990s, FEMA evolved to fulfill this role and demonstrated
through several disasters its ability and confidence, I might add, to
quickly mobilize resources and other aspects of relief efforts. By all
accounts, that is no longer the case. We should consider whether FEMA
should be made a Cabinet level agency and whether there are other steps
that the national Government can take so that in the future we can
fully mobilize our resources to respond to national catastrophes.
I am also going to revisit shortly, when the appropriations bills
come up, what I have recommended on three different occasions, along
with my colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, to fully fund the
first responders. It was strongly recommended by our former colleague,
Warren Rudman, who, along with a very distinguished commission financed
and supported by the Council on Foreign Relations, reported that we
should be spending some $20 billion every year for 5 years to see to it
that we have the adequate resources in place to respond.
Now, they were talking about a terrorist attack when they talked
about first responders. They did not have in mind natural disasters of
this magnitude. But clearly we need to anticipate both. We have
narrowly lost that amendment on three different occasions. But I would
hope in light of what has occurred in the Gulf region of our own Nation
over the last week and a half that we would be able to find the
necessary support to see to it that our first responders in this
country have the tools, the equipment, and the preparation so that we
never ever again find ourselves in this situation, ill prepared to
respond to a crisis of this kind.
Lastly, I want to pay a little special tribute to my own
constituency. As I mentioned a few moments ago, I spent a good part
late yesterday morning at the armory in Hartford, CT, where people in
my office were gathering these supplies to send down to the gulf
region. It was Labor Day, and I went over half expecting there might be
a handful of people there to process and handle the contributions.
There were hundreds of people there. It was really rather an emotional
moment to drive up and see literally hundreds of people, volunteers
from various churches and organizations in my State, gathering the
materials. There was a line of automobiles that went around the block
several times. People with their families in the car, with young
children, arrived, opened up their trunks and the backs of their cars,
and pulled out food, clothing, supplies of all kinds to be delivered to
the victims of Katrina in the Gulf region. And then to watch volunteers
sorting it out, packaging it up again. This was at one armory. Today
they are opened up across the State, and again we are seeing the same
reaction today--literally thousands of people pouring out in our small
State of Connecticut to provide assistance. What I know is that it is
occurring all across the country.
While we are talking about the failures of Government to respond
well, how proud all of us ought to be in this Chamber of our fellow
citizens because they are not sitting down. They are reacting. They are
involved in telethons and charitable giving, doing everything they can
to assist the people of the Gulf region. It is a great picture of
America. It is what all of us believe about our country. In moments
like this I did not hear a person in Connecticut talk about the South
or southerners or differences in red States and blue States. I watched
good people in the city of Hartford, CT, doing everything they can to
help out people in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. That is our
America. That is the country we represent, and we are all deeply proud
of our fellow citizens. We will get through this. We will put these
people back on their feet again, but we need to be better prepared so
we can minimize the kind of hardship that these communities have
suffered through in the last 10 days.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Senator from Washington.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to join my
colleagues in offering my support and sympathy and certainly everything
we can do from my home State of Washington to so many of our fellow
Americans who are suffering so tragically from the outfall of Hurricane
Katrina. I want them to know we will do everything we can to make sure
we are there for them.
I have to say that over the past week, citizens from this end of the
country to my end of the country on the west coast have been glued to
their television screens and really overwhelmed by the tremendous
devastation and the unfathomable suffering of so many of our fellow
Americans. The images have become almost too much to bear, watching
families without food and water, people who have been trapped on their
roofs, people searching for their loved ones. People have come up to me
everywhere when I have gone through my State over the last week. My
office has been inundated by calls from my fellow citizens in
Washington State who are really horrified at the conditions they have
seen on TV. They are asking, rightfully, what can we do to help and how
can we be there for our
[[Page S9628]]
citizens? They are reaching into their own pockets and doing everything
they can, and that truly has been heartwarming to see.
They are also asking, How could this have happened? I have to say
that people in my home State are upset and, really, with good reason.
Our Government failed in its initial response. We now have to see that
we succeed in this ongoing recovery. That certainly is my focus right
now.
There is going to be a lot of time for hard questions and
accountability, but I think today we need to focus on meeting the
tremendous needs that rescue workers and our guard and police forces
are meeting on the ground. We also need to recognize that the recovery
area is now no longer just limited to the gulf coast. As Americans have
opened their hearts and their homes and they have opened up their
communities and their stadiums and their hospitals and their homes in
towns and cities from coast to coast, that need has spread across the
country.
Shortly, in my home State of Washington, we are expecting to welcome
2,000 evacuees. Nearly 200 of them are going to arrive by this
Thursday, and we need to make sure we are doing everything and being
prepared to meet their needs as they come to our States. Right now we
have to ensure that the evacuees have the bare essentials, that they
have food, clothing, and shelter. We also have to make sure we are
preparing for the long term.
For most children in this country, as we all know, this week marks a
very exciting time, the beginning of the school year, a time that they
head off to meet their new teachers and reconnect with old friends and
make new ones. For all of the children who have been displaced from
their homes and their school districts by the effects of Hurricane
Katrina, the beginning of the school year is really the least of their
worries. But we will need to come together as a country to help these
schools across the Nation that are taking in these students from the
gulf coast.
I just heard on the television before I came here that there will be
probably 200,000 or more of these young students, and we have to do
everything we can to absorb the costs and help the transition for these
children and families, to make it as smooth as possible.
We also need to make sure we pay special attention to funding for
support for homeless and foster children and ensure that the most
vulnerable among us have the support they need to succeed and to build
brighter futures again.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many different sectors of our
transportation system have also stepped up to the plate to deliver
critical service, and because this region's infrastructure is so
devastated we need to immediately explore alternatives to moving people
and freight throughout the region. I think we all know it is going to
take time to get our transportation infrastructure back to where it
was, but we need to start concentrating on that and getting systems put
in place now as well.
Rest assured, I will be asking very hard questions in the days to
come about what went wrong and what we need to do to ensure that
Americans never endure such preventable suffering again. All of those
questions will be explored in detail, but right now I am going to
continue to make sure that we are providing the immediate support that
our families and our communities again need. Once again, I just want to
say my thoughts and my prayers go out to everyone who has been touched
by this disaster.
I see my colleague from Illinois who has been down in the region is
on the floor with us. I look forward to hearing about his firsthand
experience as well.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise to address what has been a
heartbreaking week for all of us. As was mentioned by my distinguished
colleague from Washington, I just returned from a trip from Houston
with former Presidents Clinton and Bush as part of a fund-raising
effort to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As we wandered
through the crowd, we heard in very intimate terms some of the heart-
wrenching stories that all of us have witnessed on television over the
past several days: Mothers separated from their babies; adults mourning
the loss of elderly parents; descriptions of the heat, filth, and fear
of the Superdome and of the convention center in New Orleans.
There was an overriding sense of relief in Houston, and the officials
in Houston and in the entire State of Texas deserve great credit for
the outstanding job they have done in creating a clean and stable place
for the tens of thousands of families who have been displaced.
A conversation I had with one woman captured the realities that are
settling into the families as they face the future. She said to me: We
had nothing before the hurricane, and now we have less than nothing. We
had nothing before the hurricane, now we have less than nothing.
In the coming weeks, as the images of the immediate crisis fade and
this Chamber becomes consumed with other matters, we will be hearing a
lot about lessons learned and steps to be taken. I will be among those
voices who will be calling for action. In the most immediate term, we
will have to assure that the efforts at evacuating families from the
affected States proceed--they are not finished yet--that these
Americans who are having to flee their homes, their cities, their
counties, and their towns are fed, clothed, housed, and provided with
the medical care and medicine they need.
We are also going to have to make sure we cut through the redtape
that has inexcusably prevented so much help from getting to the places
where it is needed. I can say from personal experience over the last
week how frustrating it has been, how unconscionable it has been to be
unable to find somebody in charge so that we can get medical supplies,
doctors, nurses, and other supplies down to the affected areas quickly
enough.
We are going to have to make sure in this Chamber that any
impediments that may continue to exist in preventing relief efforts
from moving forward rapidly are eliminated.
Once we stabilize the situation, this country is going to face the
enormous challenge in providing stability for displaced families over
the months and years that it is going to take to rebuild. Already the
State of Illinois has committed to accepting 10,000 displaced families.
There are stories in Illinois, as there are all across the country, of
churches, mosques, synagogues, and individual families welcoming people
with open arms and no strings attached.
Indeed, if there is any bright light that has come out of this
disaster, it is the degree to which ordinary Americans have responded
with speed and determination, even as their Government has responded
with what I consider to be unconscionable ineptitude, which brings me
to the next point. Once the situation is stable, once families are
settled for at least the short term, once children are reunited with
their parents and enrolled in school and the wounds both on the outside
and on the inside have healed, we are going to have to do some hard
thinking about how we could have failed our fellow citizens so badly
and how we will prevent such failures from ever occurring again.
It is not politics to insist that we have an independent commission
to examine these issues. It is not politics. Indeed, one of the
heartening things about this crisis has been the degree of outrage that
has come from across the political spectrum--from across races, across
incomes; the degree to which the American people sense that we can and
we must do better, and a recognition that if we can't cope with a
crisis that has been predicted for decades, a crisis in which we were
given 4 to 5 days' notice, then how can we ever hope to respond to a
serious terrorist attack in a major American city in which there is no
notice and in which the death toll and the panic and the fear may be
far greater?
That brings me to my final point. There has been a lot of attention
in the media about the fact that those who were left behind in New
Orleans were disproportionately poor and disproportionately African
American. I have said publicly that I do not subscribe to the notion
that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland
Security was somehow racially based. I do not agree with that. I think
the ineptitude was colorblind.
[[Page S9629]]
But what must be said is that whoever was in charge of planning and
preparing for the worst-case scenario seemed to assume that every
American has the capacity to load up the family in a SUV, fill it up
with $100 worth of gasoline, stick some bottled water in the trunk, and
use a credit card to check into a hotel on safe ground. I see no
evidence of active malice, but I see a continuation of passive
indifference on the part of our Government toward the least of us.
So I hope that out of this crisis we all begin to reflect--Democrats
and Republicans, Black and White, young and old, poor and wealthy. I
hope we all begin to reflect, not only on our individual
responsibilities to our families and ourselves but on our mutual
responsibilities to our fellow Americans, mutual responsibilities that
reflect themselves in church and community organizations and block
clubs but also express themselves through our Government.
I hope we realize the people of New Orleans were not just abandoned
during the hurricane, they were abandoned long ago--to murder and
mayhem in their streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated
housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of
hopelessness.
That is the deeper shame of this past week, that it has taken a
crisis such as this to awaken in us the understanding of the great
divide that continues to fester in our midst. That is what all
Americans are truly ashamed about. That is what I am ashamed about. And
the fact that we are ashamed about it is a good sign. The fact that all
of us don't like to see such a reflection of this country that we love
tells me that the American people have better instincts and a broader
heart than our current politics would indicate. ``We had nothing before
the hurricane,'' the woman told me. ``Now we have even less.'' I hope
we all take the time to ponder the truth of that message.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise to extend my deepest sympathies and
strongest possible support for the people of America's Gulf Coast
region, which was devastated by the terrible forces of Hurricane
Katrina.
In the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in the history of the
United States, we continue our attempt to comprehend the magnitude of
the losses that have occurred--most especially all those who have lost
their lives, lost livelihoods, and virtually all their physical
possessions. The scale of the destruction is most horrifically
reflected in the faces of those we have seen over the past week--faces
etched with an indelible and almost unimaginable sorrow, suffering, and
burden, and their images have reverberated throughout a country in
solidarity with their terrible plight. Indeed, there are colleagues in
this very body who have endured horrendous loss, and my thoughts and
prayers go out to them as well.
In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida lives have been
forever transformed along with the landscape, as we have witnessed
untold scenes of homes that no longer exist; floods that ravage entire
neighborhoods and cities; fires that consume what remains of buildings,
men, women, children, and the elderly seeking food, water, and
medicine--as well as missing loved ones.
The cities of New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulf Port, Pascagula, and so many
others have sustained injuries almost beyond belief. America and the
world have been stunned by the cruelty of the tragic effects of this
storm. At the same time, we are also hearing the stories of those who
have rushed to the aid of our fellow Americans in need--men and women
of the National Guard and the U.S. Armed Services, paramedics, doctors,
police men and women, volunteers from all walks of life. And as chair
of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Fisheries and Coast Guard, I
especially thank the selfless commitment of the people of the Coast
Guard, who have rescued at least 32,000 thousand individuals find have
served with the greatest heroism and honor.
To the people of the Gulf region: You do not stand alone in your pain
and frustration. Congress has a responsibility to ensure that essential
items, medical care, and shelter are provided in a timely fashion,
wherever and whenever they are needed. I am pleased the Congress passed
a $10.5 billion emergency spending bill to move the Gulf region toward
recovery, and there should be no question that as additional resources
are required, they will be provided. It is only with the full weight of
the Federal Government that the entire region will not only endure, but
recover. And as chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, I will
leave no stone unturned in identifying resources and services that can
help bring such a recovery to fruition.
I also believe that, looking forward, it is critical to examine and
assess what steps might have been taken not only to diminish the impact
of the hurricane, but also to respond appropriately in its aftermath.
We must determine how we, as a nation, could have been better prepared.
We owe that not only to those who will face potential catastrophes in
the future, but also to all those who have died and those suffering
today from Katrina's swathe of devastation.
In the end, no human or natural act can deprive Americans of their
unyielding and singularly determined spirit, and that truth has once
again demonstrated itself in the hearts of the people of the Gulf Coast
as well as the millions of acts of kindness and compassion that have
manifested themselves throughout America in Katrina's wake. We also
appreciate the outpouring of sympathy and support expressed by many
nations and their people throughout the world. Grief and humanity, hope
and caring truly know no political boundaries. This is a tragedy for
all of humankind, a wound to our world, but it is one from which we
will, in time, recover to the fullest extent possible.
All of our will and our resources as one of the wealthiest nations on
earth must and will be brought to bear over what will be a long but
ultimately triumphant process of reclaiming our Gulf Coast towns and
cities for the future. As we all work toward that common goal, we do so
hand-in-hand with all those for whom we are praying and keeping in our
thoughts.
While the hurricane's winds and rain have long since dissipated, the
collective concern and strength of this Nation continues ever onward--
unbroken, undaunted, unflagging. Our message to the people of the Gulf
Coast is both simple and solemn: Your country will be with you every
step of the way, and that is our promise to you in this most difficult
and desperate of times and forever forward from this day.
I yield the floor.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I want to again express my deepest
sympathies to all those who have suffered so much because of Hurricane
Katrina and its aftereffects. This past week has seen destruction and
misery on a scale perhaps not witnessed before in the United States.
Words simply cannot describe it.
Americans have responded to this tragedy in typical fashion with
untold acts of kindness and selflessness. Many who have lost everything
themselves have worked without sleep and in terrible conditions to help
those who cannot help themselves. The Coast Guard and military saved
thousands stranded on rooftops. People have volunteered their services
and their homes and have donated generously. Companies both large and
small have also stepped up to help, as has the international community.
In my own State of Wisconsin, we have mobilized and deployed almost 500
members of the National Guard. First responders and rescue workers have
traveled to the stricken areas to help, people are preparing shelters
for those who have been displaced, and people are opening their
pocketbooks. I deeply admire and respect all of these acts of heroism
and generosity. And as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, I want to express my sincere thanks to the many in the
international community who have come forward with their own offers of
help, and their words of support and solidarity.
Unfortunately, these acts of heroism and compassion starkly contrast
with the inadequacy of the response to this major national disaster.
Thousands desperate for help were left stranded as the relief effort
slowly sputtered into action. Empty assurances and high-level excuses
were no comfort to those stuck in overcrowded and unsafe shelters or to
those who were desperate for medicine. It is shocking and
disappointing, to say the least, that 4
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years of efforts to supposedly improve our emergency response
capabilities fell so short. We have devoted countless hours, and tens
of billions of taxpayer dollars, to Homeland Security since 9/11. But
the American people have not gotten an adequate return for this massive
investment.
We must do all we can to help the residents of Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Alabama get back on their feet and rebuild their homes
and their lives. These Americans will need our resolve and our
partnership long after the headlines fade.
In addition it is of the utmost importance that there be a thorough
and independent review of the response to Hurricane Katrina in order to
identify failures and improve our emergency response system and
capabilities. I pledge to work with my colleagues on both sides of the
aisle to ensure that those responsible for costly failures are held
accountable, and to ensure that we learn from this tragedy. We must
face up to the searing and shameful images of American families being
left to fend for themselves in increasingly desperate circumstances,
and we must ensure that we never see such images again.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
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