[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 59 (Wednesday, May 4, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2639-S2640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MIDWEST FLOODING

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, hundreds of local first responders, 500 
National Guardsmen, and hundreds of volunteers in southern Illinois are 
working around the clock to try to protect homes and communities from 
the rising waters of the Ohio River and other rivers in the region.
  I have a photo that shows the devastation, which I witnessed 
personally last Friday. This is an area of southern Illinois, one that 
has been hard pressed economically, has been struggling, and now is 
inundated with flooding.
  A few days ago when I visited Olive Branch and Cairo, IL, near the 
southern tip of the State, I saw this flooding firsthand. Homes, barns, 
and roads were covered by floodwater. Voluntary evacuations have been 
called for in a dozen Illinois towns, and people are scrambling to find 
a place to stay with friends and family and shelters to wait out the 
flood.
  They worry about what will happen, when they will get back in their 
homes, and when the kids will get back to school.
  This is another photo which demonstrates the kind of floodwaters that 
people are struggling with in my part of the world in southern 
Illinois. My colleague, Senator Kirk, was in southern Illinois over the 
last couple of days and has witnessed this firsthand as well.
  We are both prepared to do whatever we can to help our State and all 
of the States in the region that have been affected by this terrible 
flooding. In many cases this flooding is, unfortunately, going to be 
there for some time.
  One of the properties I showed was in Cairo, IL. The water is already 
waist high and will continue to rise. It can be weeks before people can 
return home to see what, if anything, they can salvage.
  Late Monday night, the Army Corps of Engineers made a very difficult 
decision. They blew a hole in a levee on the Missouri side of the 
Mississippi River near Cairo, IL, to relieve pressure on the levee and 
on other levees along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. That decision 
will flood farmland, and that flooding will relieve some of the 
pressure on the towns and communities,

[[Page S2640]]

the families and homes which have been threatened by these rising river 
waters.
  The decision to disable the levee at Birds Point in Missouri, as 
difficult as it was, may have saved the lives of some of the nearly 
3,000 people in Cairo, IL, and surrounding communities. There are early 
indications that the Army Corps plan is starting to work. The Ohio 
River has already dropped 1\1/2\ feet at Cairo since 10 o'clock Monday 
night. Engineers estimate the water level may go down as much as 7 feet 
as a result of the release of water at Birds Point.
  I want to make it clear to the people of Missouri, to my colleagues 
from Missouri, that I will stand with them to make certain there is 
compensation given to those farmers and homeowners who were affected by 
this decision to open this levee. Their misfortune is going to spare 
literally thousands of homes and businesses from the inundation of 
these floodwaters, and we should stand with them just as if they were 
the victims of the original flooding.
  I am thankful for the good news that the river levels are coming 
down, but the flooding is far from over. Water continues to rise and 
overtop levees throughout the southern part of my State. My heart goes 
out to the men and women piling sandbags, to the National Guard--God 
love them; every time we have an emergency in our State, they are there 
working night and day--also to the men and women of the Army Corps of 
Engineers, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Illinois 
Emergency Management Agency, and all of the agencies--Federal, State 
and local--that are pitching in.
  I stand ready with Senator Kirk to help in any way we can in Illinois 
and here in Washington over the next few days and weeks.
  I yield the floor.

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