[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 13, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H1530]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DISASTER RELIEF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remind you and my 
colleagues that Congress appropriated billions for disaster relief for 
Hurricanes Irma and Maria. In the latest effort, however, to find 
funding to build a wall, the White House and top budget officials 
continue to discuss shifting disaster funding to pay for a wall that a 
foreign nation was to pay for and now must be borne by people still 
recovering from disaster.
  The 2017 hurricane season was one of the worst on record. Among the 
hardest places hit were Puerto Rico and my home, the Virgin Islands of 
the United States, which not only lost power across the islands, but 
many vital pieces of infrastructure were heavily damaged and destroyed, 
and, most tragically, lives were lost.
  This disaster significantly impacted the Virgin Islands, destroying 
the island's infrastructure, with the loss of our only two hospitals, 
multiple schools, thousands of homes, and it left residents without 
electricity for a period of 9 months.
  The total damage to the Virgin Islands is estimated at $10.8 
billion--$10.8 billion in a place that only has a $1 billion budget--
$6.9 billion for infrastructure, $2.3 billion for housing, and $1.5 
million for the economy.
  Diverting disaster funds from this community would create a security 
risk and make them even more vulnerable.
  Mr. Speaker, shifting disaster relief funds appropriated by this body 
from my district and others impaired by the 2017-2018 natural disasters 
would create a catastrophic economic disaster.

                              {time}  1030

  Disaster funding from the Army Corps was critical to disaster 
recovery, including power restoration, studies, repairs, and 
construction projects in the Virgin Islands and other territories and 
States impacted by the national disasters.
  The Army Corps of Engineers, however, has barged more than 25,000 
cubic yards of construction and demolition debris from the territory. 
However, approximately more than 6,000, almost 7,000, cubic yards 
remain on the island, still to be removed.
  There is still so much work left undone. Individuals are still 
without roofs. After extensive debate and discussion with FEMA, the 
roof repair program is just now, a year and a half later, repairing the 
thousands of roofs and homes destroyed.
  The STEP roof program has been extended to March 1. The STEP program 
debris removal is still in progress throughout the territory.
  The hurricanes left not one but two hospitals overwhelmed with debris 
and destroyed--our only two hospitals--and, now, worksheets still have 
not been approved by FEMA for the rebuilding of those hospitals. The 
modular hospital is still not in place.
  Students have only recently, in this month, moved into the modular 
classrooms. Can you imagine?
  School reconstruction has not begun. Our communities still have a 
long way to go to get in the disaster recovery and rebuilding process.
  Mr. Speaker, nowhere else in this country would this be allowed. This 
would not be allowed in any of your colleagues' homes.
  However, before and after the storm, Virgin Islanders put their heads 
down and did the work. They pitched in and helped one another because 
that is all we had at that time, and the benevolence of other people, 
until you, Congress, until you, colleagues, gave them the disaster 
funding that was needed to rebuild.
  Mr. Speaker, unlike other places, the Virgin Islands doesn't have 
five or six Members of the House or millions of constituents living in 
your own districts. The Virgin Islands didn't have thousands of people 
on the news media or chefs or playwrights bringing musicals to our 
island to draw attention to the devastation in our home.
  The Virgin Islands had me, and I pray they have you--they have you, 
Mr. Speaker; they have you, colleagues--to continue the fight for them, 
for these Americans, to tell the White House that they should not shift 
disaster funding to build a wall away from Americans living in 
territories for something that a foreign country was to pay for in the 
beginning.

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