[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 24, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H9088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       STATEMENT ON HURRICANE IKE

  (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker and Members, I want to use my 1 
minute today to talk about the disaster from Hurricane Ike in the 
district I represent.
  These two pictures behind me are two separate homes that were hit by 
the wave action, the storm surge. You can see, this house is totally 
destroyed, and in this home, literally the waves went right through the 
home, knocked down the brick and everything else.
  That is not counting the thousands of homes and businesses and even 
industry that the power is out. Certain zip codes are more than 50 
percent out of power, and when you have a Houston September, which is 
really summertime, I have folks living outside their homes literally 
for the last 10 days.
  Mr. Speaker, the supplemental today for the CR is something that is 
so important to my area and all of Southeast Texas. I want to thank 
both the Speaker and Chairman Obey and my colleagues for helping work 
on funding for that for the initial disaster assistance, $22 billion 
for disaster relief activities, including $6.5 billion for CDBG funding 
and $8 billion for FEMA assistance, which is just the down payment.
  You have the fourth largest city in the country. Southeast Texas is 
devastated. To get that community back up, we need the assistance. Just 
like we helped California with the fires and the earthquakes, the 
floods in the Midwest and everywhere else, our community needs that 
help too, and I want to thank the leadership for doing it.
  These two homes are in Baytown, Texas, in East Harris County, that I 
share with Congressman Ted Poe. This is actually in our district that I 
saw Monday morning with the mayor, Steve DonCarlos, and a city council 
member.
  You can see what just the storm surge did. Just think about what 
hurricane force winds did to people's homes. We are a Pine trees area, 
so we have a lot of those trees that have fallen on houses and 
powerlines.

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