[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19573]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HURRICANE KATRINA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, first let me say that my thoughts 
and prayers go out to those who have lost loved ones and those who have 
suffered as a result of the destruction of this devastating natural 
disaster. I represent South Florida, an area that is far too often in 
the cone of error of just about every hurricane that approaches the 
United States and also home to the last time a Category 5 storm hit a 
United States territory.
  As I speak here tonight, it is unclear how many people have been 
killed or will ultimately die as a result of this storm. What is clear 
is that America has received a wake-up call, and it came in the form of 
Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina calls into question our 
preparedness as a Nation to deal with any kind of major disaster, 
whether it is a natural disaster or a disaster resulting from a 
terrorist attack.
  This month marks the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attack on 
our Nation. Our country saw the devastation that could be caused by a 
terrorist attack, recognized our vulnerabilities and supposedly set 
about the task of protecting Americans as best we could from disaster. 
The administration knew about the vulnerabilities of the levees in New 
Orleans. They knew about the level of poverty that exists in the Gulf 
States that would hamper evacuation plans, and they should have known 
at a minimum the day before the hurricane hit that they would need more 
law enforcement, rescue, medical and evacuation personnel.
  And herein lies the problem: They knew about these problems as we 
know about many problems and vulnerabilities that exist throughout 
other cities nationwide, yet we have been slow to act to improve the 
situation. I represent a city, the City of Miami, which is the third 
poorest in the Nation. In prior years, local officials in New Orleans 
recommended a plan that would have cost $14 billion to reinforce the 
levee and pump system that keeps New Orleans safe. The State of 
Louisiana sent out a call for help that the project was too big, and 
they needed Federal assistance to even begin the project. And the pleas 
for help from State and local officials fell on deaf ears in the White 
House and Congress.
  Let us put the New Orleans levee construction into perspective. We 
spend over $1 billion a week on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 
we just handed out $14 billion to oil companies in President Bush's 
energy bill we passed this summer. What is the ultimate lesson of 
Katrina? The lesson is that the officials that were supposed to provide 
support, safety and security to the people in the Gulf States failed. 
The result was a situation where every emergency coordinator knew that 
disaster was imminent. However, the existing emergency infrastructure 
was not there to remove people from harm's way, and by doing so, it 
could have saved their lives.
  We cannot as local, State and Federal officials draw up plans, have a 
1-day mock disaster drill, and then pat ourselves on the back and say 
our job is done here. The government is here to provide the 
infrastructure that is necessary to prevent deaths from imminent 
disaster and step in immediately afterwards to ensure that deaths do 
not result from the destruction caused by that disaster. I think that 
the response from the Federal Government fell far short of that 
standard.
  The lesson that Hurricane Katrina needs to have taught our government 
officials is that the current emergency management infrastructure could 
not handle a disaster the size of Katrina, and that we must streamline 
and reform our disaster preparedness and response. And we have to do it 
today. Our Nation's first priority should be to provide security, 
safety and infrastructure here at home. It is a disgrace that it took a 
disaster of such magnitude to bring light to the weaknesses of our 
system, and we must take the lessons learned to ensure that such 
catastrophes do not occur again.
  At the very least, we need not have our leaders respond in the 
fashion that the President and the Speaker of the House and a number of 
other leaders have in the last 10 days, indicating that perhaps they 
did not think New Orleans should be rebuilt and perhaps the people who 
did not get out of New Orleans made a bad decision.

                              {time}  2300

  We need to think about the wherewithal that people in these 
communities had prior to the storm, and we need to give them that 
wherewithal to move forward and go on so we can rebuild New Orleans and 
make sure that we never have to stare down a hurricane the magnitude of 
Katrina and not be prepared as we were in this storm.

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