[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 167 (Wednesday, November 13, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6542-S6543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Disaster Relief

  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, every month in States all across the 
country, more and more communities are confronting the awful burden of 
recovering from a disaster. The process is long. It is expensive. It is 
confusing, and it is painful.
  Some communities are at the very beginning of their recovery, and 
others, like Lahaina on Maui, are more than a year into the process but 
still nowhere near back to normal. And they need our help.
  It has now been more than 15 months since the ferocious fires leveled 
Lahaina in August of last year, destroying 2,200 structures--most of 
them homes--and displacing more than 12,000 people.
  For more than a year, survivors and their families have shifted from 
one temporary housing unit to the next, struggling to find any 
semblance of stability.
  Finding a new job when tourism is still lagging is hard. Rebuilding 
small businesses without access to capital and a robust workforce is 
hard. Catching up children on lost time in school is hard. Helping 
loved ones cope with their grief and trauma is hard. And even after 
enduring months of uncertainty and persistent hardship, survivors have 
little assurance that the road ahead will be any easier.

[[Page S6543]]

  They are doing all that they can to get back on their feet for 
themselves and their families, for their communities. But the simple 
fact is they cannot do it alone. They need the Federal Government's 
help.
  Thousands of homes need to be rebuilt, yet only a small fraction have 
begun the process. Small businesses need help rebounding. Critical 
infrastructure, including water and wastewater facilities, are not 
fully yet restored. A permanent site for the King Kamehameha III 
Elementary School is still under deliberation.
  The needs are great, and there are many. And as resilient as the 
people of Lahaina have been thus far, they cannot and should not bear 
this burden alone.
  While a strong Federal response to the fires has helped to complete 
the cleanup process ahead of schedule, much more help and a different 
kind of help will be needed in this next phase of recovery. As cleanup 
gives way to rebuilding, survivors will need significant financial 
assistance over a period of months and years. Building a home, building 
a store, building a community takes time and it takes resources.
  These things don't magically appear overnight, nor do they happen 
without enormous Federal investments, which is why it is essential that 
Congress, as part of any forthcoming disaster aid package, includes 
flexible, long-term assistance in the form of Community Development 
Block Grant Disaster Recovery funding.
  Short-term assistance to respond to the immediate aftermath of a 
horrific disaster is vital. But that isn't enough. It is not enough to 
clean up the wreckage and say: The rest is on you. The rest is on you.
  The Federal Government's responsibility to help survivors does not 
end when the streets are clear. Walking away halfway through the 
process, leaving exhausted survivors high and dry, with no one to turn 
to, is not an acceptable or successful outcome.
  Survivors in Lahaina and in more than 20 other States are not asking 
for a miracle. They are not asking for a handout. All they want to do 
is return to life as they knew it--to go to work, to drop off their 
kids at school, to come back to a home of their own--a life of 
stability, a life of safety, a life of security. And to do that, they 
need our help.
  They need Congress to do the thing that they have always done, which 
is to show up for survivors and stick up for them for as long as they 
need help. It is my understanding that the administration will, in the 
coming days, submit to Congress an updated request of disaster needs.
  And I want to be very, very clear. We cannot--we must not--leave town 
for the holidays next month without passing the long-term relief that 
survivors across the country need and deserve. This is not optional. We 
have to get this done.

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