[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20805]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   APPLAUDING GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, we just had the opportunity this 
morning, some of us, to hear from the Governor of Mississippi, Haley 
Barbour.
  What a refreshing example of leadership Mr. Barbour has offered our 
country. Unfortunately, as compared to the Governor of his neighboring 
State, Louisiana, faced with the same disasters, faced with loss of 
life, faced with billions of dollars in property damage, Mr. Barbour 
did not take the opportunity to bash Washington, to whine about what 
the Federal Government did or did not do; but, rather, on a local 
level, with folks like the mayor of Biloxi and the mayors of all the 
other towns and the police chiefs and the police forces and the local 
emergency management agencies, faced up to the disaster, did everything 
that they could to show folks that yes, this is tough, and 
unfortunately government is not the answer to everything, but we can 
work together, we can face up to this thing and we can bring 
Mississippi back and bring Mississippi back strong.
  I applaud Governor Barbour for the leadership he has provided. He 
gave us a case of one police force where the police station was 
flooded. The police officers did not cut and run. They did not 
evacuate. They went to the top floor. The top floor got flooded. They 
went to the roof of the building. It got flooded. They swam to nearby 
tree tops. They spent the night on trees. And yet the next morning 
rather than whine and say, oh, pity me, they came back to work and 
never evacuated, even though on a personal level all of those police 
officers from this particular precinct lost all their houses. Their 
homes were gone and their families had to evacuate for many weeks of 
separation.
  That is the face of some of the great American people that we are 
seeing, not just in Mississippi but also in Louisiana and Alabama, but 
I particularly applaud Governor Barbour for his leadership.

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