[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21490]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        RECOVERY FROM HURRICANES

  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues this 
morning to begin to look at the recovery of Hurricane Katrina, and 
support thereof to include Hurricane Rita. Just spending 4 days in the 
region, a number of them at the Transtar Hurricane Emergency Center day 
and night, I can tell my colleagues that the frustration that is 
reflected in the Houston Chronicle, FEMA faulted yet again, and of 
course, that in The Washington Post, evacuees urged to stay away, is 
only a limited story of what we have faced in that region.
  Going into the region directly hit just yesterday, I can tell my 
colleagues, as the local officials wanted me to say, there is no food, 
there is no water, there is no ice. They need help--they need 
leadership from the Federal Government. There are trucks parked on 
hotel parking lots that cannot be opened to share food because the 
military has not yet been directed to arrive to unload the trucks.
  This is not a finger pointed in the direction of local officials. It 
is a finger pointed with a singular question: Who is in charge? When 
you are ordered to evacuate and there is no order, who is in charge?
  An independent inquiry, a widespread understanding of how we can 
secure the homeland is absolutely imperative.

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