[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11594-11596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              IOWA TORNADO

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I probably will not be more than 10 
minutes, but I appreciate the will of the Senate if I need a few more 
minutes.
  Today, I pay tribute to the victims of the devastating tornado that 
ripped through northeast Iowa a week ago Sunday. This would have been 
Memorial Day weekend. That is a weekend that traditionally offers a 
thank-you to veterans who have given their lives. It is a time of 
backyard barbecues, and in the Midwest it is when swimming pools open 
for business. But late afternoon on May 25, 2008, Mother Nature 
unleashed a tragic beginning to a summer vacation. It was a kind of 
natural disaster that makes people realize the perils of pettiness and 
appreciate what really matters the most.
  A history-making twister produced winds in excess of 200 miles per 
hour. It tore across Butler County--that is my home county--Black Hawk 
County, Delaware County, and Buchanan County. It paved a 43-mile path 
of destruction. The severe storm system virtually ripped the town of 
Parkersburg in half. It destroyed 22 businesses, leveled 222 homes, and 
damaged 408 others in a community of only 2,000. The storm system 
injured 70 individuals. The fatalities attributed to the tornado have 
now risen to eight Iowans.
  But the statistics don't do justice to the heartbreak and to the 
hurt. Natural disasters have wrought havoc on humanity since the 
beginning of time. In recent years, the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia 
claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced millions of victims from 
their homes. In September 2005, a category 5 hurricane ravaged the 
American gulf coast, causing $11.3 billion in damages. Last year, in 
Greensburg, KS, a tornado leveled the entire community of 1,400, 
causing an estimated $267 million in damage. The financial estimate of 
damage from the May 25 tornado in my home area from storms and flooding 
hasn't been calculated yet, but the pricetag will not do justice to the 
heartbreak and to the hurt.
  Whether it is an earthquake, a hurricane, or a tornado, a natural 
disaster leaves behind massive debris and destruction. The physical and 
financial tolls shouldered by the victims arguably pale compared to the 
emotional scars and personal losses left in the aftermath of a killer 
natural disaster.
  This tornado was what they call an F-5 tornado, the worst they get. 
It struck terror into the hearts and minds of northeast Iowans over 
Memorial Day weekend, and it also hit close to home as well. From the 
lawn on my farm near New Hartford, I watched what I thought was nothing 
but a dark storm cloud blackening the sky as the tornado made its way 
across Butler County from Parkersburg--population, as I said, about 
2,000--to my hometown of New Hartford, population 600.
  It was the first F-5 tornado to strike Iowa since 1976, so tornadoes 
like this don't happen every day in our State. Maybe they do in 
Oklahoma, but they do not every day in my State. And it happened to be 
the deadliest tornado in

[[Page 11595]]

the State since the 1968 tornado in Charles City, IA. I believe that 
tornado claimed about 13 lives compared to the 8 so far here.
  In some ways, the storm may serve as a wake-up call to those of us 
who have become somewhat complacent about severe weather warnings. The 
day after the storm, I visited with residents of Parkersburg and New 
Hartford and toured the damage, along with Senator Harkin and Governor 
Culver, and Congressman Braley was there. It was an unimaginable scene.
  In Parkersburg, the tornado ripped apart the Aplington-Parkersburg 
High School. This is a picture of that devastating damage. It will cost 
$14 million to rebuild. Thank God they were well insured, I have been 
told. I haven't heard that directly but indirectly.
  It destroyed the Parkersburg City Hall, crushed the town's only gas 
station, and crumbled the grocery store. If you watched CNN yesterday, 
you were able to find some pictures from the cameras that guard the 
bank during the night and over the weekend, and you saw, before they 
went blank, sucking everything up. And you know where a lot of those 
bank papers landed, and a lot of pictures from various homes? In 
Prairie Du Chien, WI, 100 miles away. And those people in Prairie Du 
Chien, we are told by television, are collecting all those valuables 
and are someday going to bring them back to Parkersburg, IA.
  In the afternoon of this tragedy, seven people sought refuge and 
survived by going to a produce cooler in one of the restaurants there. 
That is just one example of what people do. So more life could have 
been taken. I have been told by some people that as the Weather Bureau 
or the government agencies that measure this stuff and tracked the 
storm, that this damage to 220 homes in Parkersburg, IA, could have 
been done in just a few seconds, like 20, 30 seconds. Some people on 
the scene said it had to be less than 45 seconds. But in just a few 
minutes or a few seconds, whatever you want to say, a mile-wide tornado 
wiped away a lifetime of treasured belongings, furniture, and family 
memorabilia. There are no parts of homes sitting around. There is only 
sticks sitting around, and a lot of that landed in farm fields miles 
away. There are uprooted trees. There is not a tree with a leaf, maybe 
a limb or two. The trunk maybe still stands, or maybe the trunk is 
down. We have mangled vehicles. Some people didn't know where their 
vehicle ended up. Maybe today they do, but they didn't a week after the 
storm, they told me. It killed a lot of livestock in the rural areas, 
ripped away roofs and walls, mowed down neighborhoods, shredded solidly 
built homes like toothpicks, and knocked out the city's infrastructure.
  I saw this debris. I am told that there were 60,000 tons in 
Parkersburg alone left behind in the wake of the tornado. I suppose 
that is a rough guesstimate, but the people who know about the tragedy 
know how to estimate some of this stuff. This picture of the high 
school, once again, probably isn't the best picture I could produce 
about how much of a wilderness the southern half of this small town is, 
and I don't think this captures the wreckage, but it is a small 
glimpse. It is nearly inconceivable to understand the awesome force of 
Mother Nature.
  Thankfully, the resiliency and the compassion of human nature also 
has proven that it can withstand floods and droughts and famines, and 
so it shall be in my home State. After seeing the devastation 
firsthand, it still made me wonder that the fatalities have thus far 
been kept in single digits considering that 70 people were 
hospitalized. And I commend the emergency preparedness plans put into 
action by city and county authorities and during the storm. The civil 
defense people came from the adjoining counties without hardly even 
being called to come. They knew we needed help. And thanks to the 
warning systems, countless lives were saved.
  In fact, rising above the call of duty, volunteer firefighters in my 
hometown of New Hartford raced up and down the streets after the power 
had gone out alerting people with their vehicle sirens, just to show 
their commitment to letting everybody know that just a few minutes away 
was a terrible weapon of destruction.
  Exactly 1 week after the storm blazed its trail through the region, I 
returned to Parkersburg. I am pleased to report relief and recovery 
efforts underway. I saw fire departments coming up to serve the 
community and the surrounding communities from 100 miles away--the 
suburbs of Des Moines, IA, is an example.
  I hope you know there is a great deal of resilience in the people of 
Parkersburg and New Hartford. Like a beacon of hope, I want to show you 
where people were, what they were doing 6 days after this tornado hit 
through. This doesn't give justice to all the debris that still has not 
been picked up, but there were people constructing new buildings right 
away. Except for a generation of trees being gone--because 25 years 
from now you will be able to go down this 43 miles and you are going to 
know where this tornado went--except for that, Parkersburg and these 
other communities will be back in a few months. I give this as evidence 
of the resilience of the people, only 6 days after this damage took 
place.
  The cleanup operation, of course, will take a long time. Bulky 
machinery will do the heaviest lifting. That is after people have an 
opportunity to paw through all of the strewn things that are there, so 
they can take out some of their valuables in the sense of 
remembrances--pictures, photographs, maybe some important documents 
they might find. There may be some of those important documents up in 
Prairie Duchene.
  The scoreboard for this high school ended up 70 miles in Decorah, IA, 
as an example. Maybe it was part of the scoreboard, but this tells you 
how it is.
  It is going to take countless hours of manpower to orchestrate this 
massive undertaking to get the job done. The seemingly impossible task 
is being made possible, thanks to the tireless commitments of Butler 
County's first responders, administrators, emergency crews, and legions 
of volunteers, but in addition to my county, counties around it. You 
can't believe the number of trucks that came in Sunday to haul away 
debris, as an example.
  We have had the donation of food, water, clothing, and other supplies 
poured into the tornado-ravaged region. I wish to mention a few notable 
examples of neighbors and strangers lending a hand during the recovery 
week. There is no count of construction crews and heavy equipment 
volunteers coming in from as far as Tennessee. I have thanked Senator 
Corker I have not thanked Senator Alexander yet, for people coming all 
way from Tennessee with very heavy equipment. People who were cleaning 
up from tornadoes in Oklahoma the night before spent the night on the 
road to come up and help people in Parkersburg, IA.
  Separately, we had a group of traveling volunteers known as the 
Massage Emergency Response Team from California--people who are 
physical therapists who came in to rub the backs of people working day 
and night. They offer assistance to those who need stress and tension 
relief from their recovery work.
  We had a group of 90 high school students, mostly football players 
from the Catholic high school, Dowling, in Des Moines, traveling 100 
miles to help with the recovery work at the Aplington-Parkersburg High 
School athletic fields. If you want to know how this little town of 200 
is proud of its football team, this little town has four NFL players, 
right now--I mean not right now today playing football, but still 
signed up. These Dowling High School people pitched in to rake up glass 
and debris.
  The Salvation Army has set up mobile canteens serving 1,000 hot meals 
each day to the Parkersburg residents and relief residents, and in New 
Hartford as well. And the Red Cross, as you would expect because of 
their good reputation, was immediately on the job and is still present.
  The tornado, storm, and flood damage over Memorial Day weekend in 
Iowa has received Federal declaration of disaster assistance, and 
people have come in from FEMA, from Sacramento, CA; from Pennsylvania 
and from New

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Jersey; maybe from a lot of other places that I had a chance to meet on 
that Sunday afternoon. So the Federal people are working well, as they 
should.
  Residents in these communities will need help rebuilding and I know 
Iowans appreciate that help. So I am here to say thank you to 
everybody.
  I listed only a few people. If I knew everybody who was helping out, 
there wouldn't be any help there. You can't keep on top of everybody 
who is stressing out. When I was in church in Cedar Falls, IA, one 
Sunday we had people there from North Carolina--Franklin Graham. We had 
people there from the Billy Graham organization in Minneapolis.
  Looking out across the countryside near my home, our corner of the 
world looks turned upside down. Utility polls, shingles, siding, 
insulation, uprooted trees are strewn across the farm fields. The 
cleanup will take time, but I know Iowans are in this for the long 
haul. I and other Grassleys were fortunate in this damage, because I 
live 1\1/2\ miles south of where the tornado went through on a farm. My 
son and grandson farm with me. They live a mile and a half north of 
where the tornado went through. I thank God for that.
  We lost friends. A person named Norman who worked at the New Hartford 
grain elevator will not be there because he was killed in this tornado. 
So Norman, who always greeted us when we would go to the elevator to 
unload our grain in the fall--his friendly face will be missed.
  The outpouring of support from neighbors, friends, and strangers from 
near and far has given a jump-start to the necessary healing process. 
It underscores the decency of human nature rising above catastrophic 
forces of Mother Nature. The selfless sacrifice by literally scores of 
heroes will help mend the immeasurable heartbreak and hurts that I saw 
during my visits to these communities.
  I say with gladness in my own heart, the F5 tornado did not 
extinguish the hope and pride of residents of the midwestern 
communities who call Parkersburg, New Hartford, Hazleton, and Dunkerton 
home.
  I suppose maybe it is a little bit ambitious on my part to take the 
floor of the Senate to acknowledge this and to praise the Lord for what 
can be done now, and the people who have not been hurt. I suppose every 
one of my colleagues, particularly in the tornado channel that I most 
often hear about, of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
and I guess yesterday damage around here as well--maybe every Senator 
could tell the story I tell. But, frankly, tornadoes are not as common 
in my State as they are in these other States and there is a lesson to 
be learned from this. There is an appreciation to be learned from it. 
We all ought to remember how lucky--and then we need to remember how 
unlucky--some people and families are, in our daily life.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I too ask unanimous consent that I might be 
allowed to speak for as much time as I might consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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