[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 7, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H7708]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE TRAGEDY OF HURRICANE KATRINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. CARSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you all 
Americans for your prayers, your volunteerism, your most generous 
financial support, and all of the ways that you attempted to relieve 
some of the pain of those evacuees who were affected. My prayers 
continue.
  The United States Congress, Members of the United States Congress, 
should board the plane transportation and go to the gulf, go to 
Mississippi, go to Louisiana, and all the other affected places. 
Congress should go, not just watch it on television, because it is very 
heart-wrenching, and I think we ought to be there in person.
  I think we need to understand what happened to the young man whose 
mother cried out for help. On a Monday they promised her help was 
coming. On Tuesday they promised her it would be there shortly. On 
Wednesday it would be there in just a few. On Thursday, help is on the 
way. On Friday she drowned. Most heart-wrenching story that I have 
seen.
  In my district, Calvary Temple sent nine buses after they got 
authorized by the American Red Cross to go down. But once they got 
there, FEMA would not allow them to board people on the buses. And they 
only allowed 12 people to get on nine buses, and the rest of the buses 
returned to Indianapolis empty, which is tragic.
  We have some of the most sophisticated hospital ships in the whole 
world that sit right out here at Virginia. It took them 5 days to even 
get started to go down to the gulf, when it was clear that the help of 
the ships and the midshipmen and all the medical supplies on board were 
needed immediately.
  We need to immediately reinstitute WPA days, Work Progress 
Administration days, that worked so well during the Roosevelt 
administration and that allowed all of these unemployed people that we 
have now in the South to begin to rebuild their own cities. And I know 
that numerous of them would be more than happy to allow the government 
to pay them while they rebuild their own cities. It is like Charles 
Dickens' ``Tale of Two Cities,'' the worst of times. But we could 
augment legislation to make it better times for the people that were so 
tragically affected. And I encourage Congress to do that.
  Mr. Speaker, there have been so many comments made that I was going 
to make, and I will not replicate them. But in closing, I would like to 
remind us that every Member of this Congress should get together, not 
all at the same time, it is too many of them. But day after day after 
day we need to take a trip to the gulf, meet the people there, help 
serve the homeless, help serve the hungry, take clothes, our own money 
used, take clothes, take water, take diapers, take hygiene equipment. 
We need to personally be involved ourselves. And we need to get on the 
road right away.
  Mr. Speaker, I regretfully rise today to join a growing chorus of 
American outrage in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster on the 
Gulf Coast.
  My purpose tonight is not to assign blame for this tragedy onto any 
single official or agency, but to express my shame and the shame of my 
constituents at the failure of our government to serve its citizens 
when they needed it most. Mr. Speaker, the American people know that 
this great Nation can do better. They deserve answers. They deserve 
results.
  When I talk to my constituents I hear their indignation that a city 
like New Orleans, which lies below sea level and is so obviously 
vulnerable to hurricanes, was turned down repeatedly in recent years by 
its Federal Government for assistance in shoring up levees and 
reinforcing the ailing water pumps which kept the city above ground.
  I hear anger that, in a city where with several days' notice of an 
imminent landfall of the hurricane, in a city where one third of all 
residents live below the poverty line, the only real option for 
evacuation was the ownership and deployment of privately owned 
automobiles.
  Mr. Speaker, families living on less than $9,000 a year don't own 
cars. And because the hurricane came at the end of the month, low-wage 
earners living from paycheck to paycheck could not afford passage even 
if they had them. It was these poor, overwhelmingly African-American 
residents who were left to die in the thousands. The American public 
knows this tragedy could have been avoided. They deserve answers. They 
deserve results.
  And now, with as much as 10,000 feared dead and thousands more 
waiting for housing, food, and other supplies, Americans from across 
this country who have offered their assistance and opened their cities 
to displaced citizens from Louisiana and Mississippi are being turned 
down by FEMA.
  Last weekend a caravan of relief supplies and buses organized by 
local charities in my hometown of Indianapolis arrived in New Orleans 
to help evacuate the homeless to Indianapolis but was sent home by FEMA 
officials who insist that such generosity first pass through exorbitant 
layers of red tape before reaching citizens in need.
  Never before has the great disconnect between the American public and 
its government been so clear.
  The management of this disaster calls into question our readiness to 
deal with similar emergencies, including future terrorist attacks that 
may displace citizens and require massive relief efforts. But it also 
exposes the colossal failures of this Congress. And for that the 
American public deserves answers. They deserve results.
  The business of this body has for too long been dominated by 
legislation that explicitly benefits the wealthy at the expense of our 
Nation's poor, such as the bankruptcy bill, the repeal of the estate 
tax, the President's devastating income tax proposals, and multiple 
bills shielding corporations from lawsuits, which are often the only 
means to reverse the injustices inflicted on our forgotten poorest 
citizens by our richest and most powerful.
  Indeed, this Congress and this administration have not dared 
acknowledge the plight of the poor and less fortunate in this country. 
Now, finally, we have no choice.
  In the wake of this profound tragedy, let us find the strength to 
face the failures of our past and turn toward policies that aim to 
protect all our citizens from harm.

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