[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 92 (Thursday, June 5, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5192-S5194]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IOWA TORNADO
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I probably will not be more than 10
minutes, but I appreciate the will of the Senate if I need a few more
minutes.
Today, I pay tribute to the victims of the devastating tornado that
ripped through northeast Iowa a week ago Sunday. This would have been
Memorial Day weekend. That is a weekend that traditionally offers a
thank-you to veterans who have given their lives. It is a time of
backyard barbecues, and in the Midwest it is when swimming pools open
for business. But late afternoon on May 25, 2008, Mother Nature
unleashed a tragic beginning to a summer vacation. It was a kind of
natural disaster that makes people realize the perils of pettiness and
appreciate what really matters the most.
A history-making twister produced winds in excess of 200 miles per
hour. It tore across Butler County--that is my home county--Black Hawk
County, Delaware County, and Buchanan County. It paved a 43-mile path
of destruction. The severe storm system virtually ripped the town of
Parkersburg in half. It destroyed 22 businesses, leveled 222 homes, and
damaged 408 others in a community of only 2,000. The storm system
injured 70 individuals. The fatalities attributed to the tornado have
now risen to eight Iowans.
But the statistics don't do justice to the heartbreak and to the
hurt. Natural disasters have wrought havoc on humanity since the
beginning of time. In recent years, the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia
claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced millions of victims from
their homes. In September 2005, a category 5 hurricane ravaged the
American gulf coast, causing $11.3 billion in damages. Last year, in
Greensburg, KS, a tornado leveled the entire community of 1,400,
causing an estimated $267 million in damage. The financial estimate of
damage from the May 25 tornado in my home area from storms and flooding
hasn't been calculated yet, but the pricetag will not do justice to the
heartbreak and to the hurt.
Whether it is an earthquake, a hurricane, or a tornado, a natural
disaster leaves behind massive debris and destruction. The physical and
financial tolls shouldered by the victims arguably pale compared to the
emotional scars and personal losses left in the aftermath of a killer
natural disaster.
This tornado was what they call an F-5 tornado, the worst they get.
It struck terror into the hearts and minds of northeast Iowans over
Memorial Day weekend, and it also hit close to home as well. From the
lawn on my farm near New Hartford, I watched what I thought was nothing
but a dark storm cloud blackening the sky as the tornado made its way
across Butler County from Parkersburg--population, as I said, about
2,000--to my hometown of New Hartford, population 600.
It was the first F-5 tornado to strike Iowa since 1976, so tornadoes
like this don't happen every day in our State. Maybe they do in
Oklahoma, but they do not every day in my State. And it happened to be
the deadliest tornado in the State since the 1968 tornado in Charles
City, IA. I believe that tornado claimed about 13 lives compared to the
8 so far here.
In some ways, the storm may serve as a wake-up call to those of us
who have become somewhat complacent about severe weather warnings. The
day after the storm, I visited with residents of Parkersburg and New
Hartford and toured the damage, along with Senator Harkin and Governor
Culver, and Congressman Braley was there. It was an unimaginable scene.
In Parkersburg, the tornado ripped apart the Aplington-Parkersburg
High School. This is a picture of that devastating damage. It will cost
$14 million to rebuild. Thank God they were well insured, I have been
told. I haven't heard that directly but indirectly.
It destroyed the Parkersburg City Hall, crushed the town's only gas
station, and crumbled the grocery store. If you watched CNN yesterday,
you were able to find some pictures from the cameras that guard the
bank during the night and over the weekend, and you saw, before they
went blank, sucking everything up. And you know where a lot of those
bank papers landed, and a lot of pictures from various homes? In
Prairie Du Chien, WI, 100
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miles away. And those people in Prairie Du Chien, we are told by
television, are collecting all those valuables and are someday going to
bring them back to Parkersburg, IA.
In the afternoon of this tragedy, seven people sought refuge and
survived by going to a produce cooler in one of the restaurants there.
That is just one example of what people do. So more life could have
been taken. I have been told by some people that as the Weather Bureau
or the government agencies that measure this stuff and tracked the
storm, that this damage to 220 homes in Parkersburg, IA, could have
been done in just a few seconds, like 20, 30 seconds. Some people on
the scene said it had to be less than 45 seconds. But in just a few
minutes or a few seconds, whatever you want to say, a mile-wide tornado
wiped away a lifetime of treasured belongings, furniture, and family
memorabilia. There are no parts of homes sitting around. There is only
sticks sitting around, and a lot of that landed in farm fields miles
away. There are uprooted trees. There is not a tree with a leaf, maybe
a limb or two. The trunk maybe still stands, or maybe the trunk is
down. We have mangled vehicles. Some people didn't know where their
vehicle ended up. Maybe today they do, but they didn't a week after the
storm, they told me. It killed a lot of livestock in the rural areas,
ripped away roofs and walls, mowed down neighborhoods, shredded solidly
built homes like toothpicks, and knocked out the city's infrastructure.
I saw this debris. I am told that there were 60,000 tons in
Parkersburg alone left behind in the wake of the tornado. I suppose
that is a rough guesstimate, but the people who know about the tragedy
know how to estimate some of this stuff. This picture of the high
school, once again, probably isn't the best picture I could produce
about how much of a wilderness the southern half of this small town is,
and I don't think this captures the wreckage, but it is a small
glimpse. It is nearly inconceivable to understand the awesome force of
Mother Nature.
Thankfully, the resiliency and the compassion of human nature also
has proven that it can withstand floods and droughts and famines, and
so it shall be in my home State. After seeing the devastation
firsthand, it still made me wonder that the fatalities have thus far
been kept in single digits considering that 70 people were
hospitalized. And I commend the emergency preparedness plans put into
action by city and county authorities and during the storm. The civil
defense people came from the adjoining counties without hardly even
being called to come. They knew we needed help. And thanks to the
warning systems, countless lives were saved.
In fact, rising above the call of duty, volunteer firefighters in my
hometown of New Hartford raced up and down the streets after the power
had gone out alerting people with their vehicle sirens, just to show
their commitment to letting everybody know that just a few minutes away
was a terrible weapon of destruction.
Exactly 1 week after the storm blazed its trail through the region, I
returned to Parkersburg. I am pleased to report relief and recovery
efforts underway. I saw fire departments coming up to serve the
community and the surrounding communities from 100 miles away--the
suburbs of Des Moines, IA, is an example.
I hope you know there is a great deal of resilience in the people of
Parkersburg and New Hartford. Like a beacon of hope, I want to show you
where people were, what they were doing 6 days after this tornado hit
through. This doesn't give justice to all the debris that still has not
been picked up, but there were people constructing new buildings right
away. Except for a generation of trees being gone--because 25 years
from now you will be able to go down this 43 miles and you are going to
know where this tornado went--except for that, Parkersburg and these
other communities will be back in a few months. I give this as evidence
of the resilience of the people, only 6 days after this damage took
place.
The cleanup operation, of course, will take a long time. Bulky
machinery will do the heaviest lifting. That is after people have an
opportunity to paw through all of the strewn things that are there, so
they can take out some of their valuables in the sense of
remembrances--pictures, photographs, maybe some important documents
they might find. There may be some of those important documents up in
Prairie Duchene.
The scoreboard for this high school ended up 70 miles in Decorah, IA,
as an example. Maybe it was part of the scoreboard, but this tells you
how it is.
It is going to take countless hours of manpower to orchestrate this
massive undertaking to get the job done. The seemingly impossible task
is being made possible, thanks to the tireless commitments of Butler
County's first responders, administrators, emergency crews, and legions
of volunteers, but in addition to my county, counties around it. You
can't believe the number of trucks that came in Sunday to haul away
debris, as an example.
We have had the donation of food, water, clothing, and other supplies
poured into the tornado-ravaged region. I wish to mention a few notable
examples of neighbors and strangers lending a hand during the recovery
week. There is no count of construction crews and heavy equipment
volunteers coming in from as far as Tennessee. I have thanked Senator
Corker I have not thanked Senator Alexander yet, for people coming all
way from Tennessee with very heavy equipment. People who were cleaning
up from tornadoes in Oklahoma the night before spent the night on the
road to come up and help people in Parkersburg, IA.
Separately, we had a group of traveling volunteers known as the
Massage Emergency Response Team from California--people who are
physical therapists who came in to rub the backs of people working day
and night. They offer assistance to those who need stress and tension
relief from their recovery work.
We had a group of 90 high school students, mostly football players
from the Catholic high school, Dowling, in Des Moines, traveling 100
miles to help with the recovery work at the Aplington-Parkersburg High
School athletic fields. If you want to know how this little town of 200
is proud of its football team, this little town has four NFL players,
right now--I mean not right now today playing football, but still
signed up. These Dowling High School people pitched in to rake up glass
and debris.
The Salvation Army has set up mobile canteens serving 1,000 hot meals
each day to the Parkersburg residents and relief residents, and in New
Hartford as well. And the Red Cross, as you would expect because of
their good reputation, was immediately on the job and is still present.
The tornado, storm, and flood damage over Memorial Day weekend in
Iowa has received Federal declaration of disaster assistance, and
people have come in from FEMA, from Sacramento, CA; from Pennsylvania
and from New Jersey; maybe from a lot of other places that I had a
chance to meet on that Sunday afternoon. So the Federal people are
working well, as they should.
Residents in these communities will need help rebuilding and I know
Iowans appreciate that help. So I am here to say thank you to
everybody.
I listed only a few people. If I knew everybody who was helping out,
there wouldn't be any help there. You can't keep on top of everybody
who is stressing out. When I was in church in Cedar Falls, IA, one
Sunday we had people there from North Carolina--Franklin Graham. We had
people there from the Billy Graham organization in Minneapolis.
Looking out across the countryside near my home, our corner of the
world looks turned upside down. Utility polls, shingles, siding,
insulation, uprooted trees are strewn across the farm fields. The
cleanup will take time, but I know Iowans are in this for the long
haul. I and other Grassleys were fortunate in this damage, because I
live 1\1/2\ miles south of where the tornado went through on a farm. My
son and grandson farm with me. They live a mile and a half north of
where the tornado went through. I thank God for that.
We lost friends. A person named Norman who worked at the New Hartford
grain elevator will not be there because he was killed in this tornado.
So Norman, who always greeted us when we would go to the elevator to
unload our grain in the fall--his friendly face will be missed.
[[Page S5194]]
The outpouring of support from neighbors, friends, and strangers from
near and far has given a jump-start to the necessary healing process.
It underscores the decency of human nature rising above catastrophic
forces of Mother Nature. The selfless sacrifice by literally scores of
heroes will help mend the immeasurable heartbreak and hurts that I saw
during my visits to these communities.
I say with gladness in my own heart, the F5 tornado did not
extinguish the hope and pride of residents of the midwestern
communities who call Parkersburg, New Hartford, Hazleton, and Dunkerton
home.
I suppose maybe it is a little bit ambitious on my part to take the
floor of the Senate to acknowledge this and to praise the Lord for what
can be done now, and the people who have not been hurt. I suppose every
one of my colleagues, particularly in the tornado channel that I most
often hear about, of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and I guess yesterday damage around here as well--maybe every Senator
could tell the story I tell. But, frankly, tornadoes are not as common
in my State as they are in these other States and there is a lesson to
be learned from this. There is an appreciation to be learned from it.
We all ought to remember how lucky--and then we need to remember how
unlucky--some people and families are, in our daily life.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I too ask unanimous consent that I might be
allowed to speak for as much time as I might consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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