[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 21957-21958]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            HURRICANE FLOYD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, first allow me to convey my sincerest 
condolences and sympathies to the people of North Carolina. This has 
been such a terrible natural disaster, unprecedented in anyone's 
memory. I can only imagine the suffering that the people of North 
Carolina have already experienced and what lies ahead for them. Our 
prayers are with my colleagues and the people they represent, and we 
will do our part here in this body to assist my colleagues in assisting 
them.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about the effect of 
Floyd's fury that was felt in my State of New Jersey. We are now in the 
process of rebuilding our lives in the Garden State, lives that almost 
without exception were touched by Floyd.
  In my district alone, it was not just the people who live near bodies 
of water. Virtually every single body of water, whether it was a lake 
or a stream or river overflowed its banks in unprecedented ways. There 
are countless tens of thousands of homes all through my district where 
basements were flooded, first levels were flooded, no, not much loss of 
life, thank God, but tremendous suffering, heartache, loss of worldly 
possessions, yes, but thank goodness not much loss of life.
  But our people will be spending a great many weeks and months 
rebuilding their lives as they try to come to terms with what happened 
in the wake of Floyd.
  I will tell my colleagues what they say the amount of damage in New 
Jersey just in northern New Jersey alone, $500 million worth of damage.
  In addition to the flooding of the homes and businesses and towns 
washed out, phone service was out. In my neck of the woods in northern 
New Jersey, a million people were without phone service beyond just 
their own little towns, more than a million people. Thirty-five 
thousand people had no phone service whatsoever.
  There was no wireless cell phone service which we rely on a great 
deal in northern New Jersey, no fax machines, no ATM machines.
  Now my colleagues can say, well, why did this happen. We had families 
who were unable to check in on their loved ones, whether children 
checking in on their parents or vice versa if they lived out of town. 
We had patients unable to find their doctors, doctors unable to reach 
their patients. We had businesses unable to communicate with their 
customers, the customers with their businesses, suppliers with 
businesses.
  How could this have happened? Well, I have asked that we undertake a 
Federal inquiry into how a vital industry, a vital utility such as the 
phone company, could have permitted or how they handled in fact Floyd's 
aftermath with so many million people and more without phone service 
for 3, 4, 5 days.

                              {time}  1930

  Tens of millions of dollars were lost in terms of business alone, 
notwithstanding all of the heartache and emotional isolation felt by so 
many in my communities.
  Well, the switching facility is apparently located near a body of 
water that

[[Page 21958]]

had flooded and overflowed its banks in 1977. We are going to learn 
more about the details, but it is critical that in the year 1999 we 
find out why there was no redundancy, no duplication of switching 
devices, which would have prevented all together this tremendous lack 
of telephone service and the lack of disruption and damage to people's 
lives and businesses.
  I am meeting with representatives from the phone company tomorrow. 
And we have a great many dedicated men and women who work for the 
telephone companies who did their utmost to prevent disruption, but I 
am afraid that there may need to be a new way of thinking on behalf of 
those planning for the worst. Y2K, the year 2000, is coming upon us. 
There are always the potentialities for accidents or, God forbid, 
terrorist incidents. If we are not prepared in the metropolitan area of 
New York and New Jersey for these kinds of disasters, natural and 
humankind, what can we look forward to around the country? That is why 
we are conducting a federal investigation and will hold hearings on 
what could have been done to prevent that kind of tragedy.
  As my time runs out, I just want to say to the people of New Jersey 
that we are fighting here in Congress for them, and I ask my colleagues 
to join me.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for an additional 
minute.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Aderholt). The Chair is unable to 
recognize that request.

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