    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [February 16, 1996]
    [Pages 274-275]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Prior to a Roundtable Discussion on the Flooding in
    Wilkes-Barre
    February 16, 1996

        Thank you very much. Well, Jim, I was looking at the pictures behind
    me while you were talking, trying to visualize what you all have been
    through. And I want to just begin by thanking you and everyone who
    worked with you for the way you handled this, and also the people of
    this area for the way they handled it.
        Governor, Congressman, Mayor, we're all honored to be here with you.
    I'm here, obviously, along with the James Lee Witt and a number of
    people from the Federal Government who were privileged to work with you.
    We have Dave Sharma from the Department of Transportation, a number of
    people here from SBA, General Genega from the Corps of Engineers, and
    Martin Lancaster, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Works. And I'll have
    more to say about them in a moment.
        I think all of you know that the Governor and your two United States
    Senators, who had to go back to work, and Congressman Kanjorski and
    Congressman Holden and I, along with our FEMA Director, James Lee Witt,
    just toured Parkin Street with the mayor. And I must say I was very
    moved by the spirit of the people there. They told me some of the
    stories and I went over to the place where the water came out and I saw
    the damage there to the canal.
        I have--I followed this problem with great interest, and of course,
    even though I was a long way away and not in public life then, I have
    very vivid memories of that 1972 flood. Everyone in America saw it
    unfolding and saw the suffering that all of you went through. And I want
    to say that I know there were other places which really suffered in the
    Wyoming Valley. We have people here, I think, from Plains, Avoca, and
    Shickshinny and Lycoming County. There was, I think, the Governor told
    me--I think you had 12 people lost their lives in this flood. So I just
    want to say to all the people of Pennsylvania how much I appreciate what
    you went through.
        I also--in these natural disasters I never cease to be amazed by the
    courage and ingenuity and stamina people show. I just met a--when I was
    out West, I met a man who was a retired employee of the public utility
    in this little town where I visited. He was a Norwegian immigrant well
    up into his sixties, and to help the town deal with the aftermath of the
    flood, he worked for 8 hours on a jackhammer with a cracked rib. And
    that's the sort of thing that you see all over America.
        I want to compliment Eric Malone here who is, as I understand it,
    only 19, and he used his jet ski to pull 5 people from the Juniata
    River. I couldn't even stay on a jet ski. [Laughter] And I'm impressed
    that he got himself and others on. I thank Jean Wilde for coordinating
    the evacuation of Mercy Hospital and the work that you are continuing to
    do. And I thank you, sir. I can't believe that you evacuated 100,000
    people. For those of us who were not here when this flood occurred, we
    saw the pictures, but I don't think that the dimensions of it hit home
    in the rest of America until it was announced that you were actually
    evacuating 100,000 people. We saw the pictures of all of

    [[Page 275]]

    these people leaving their homes. It made a profound impact on everyone.
        We want to continue to do our part at the national level through all
    of the Federal agencies. FEMA has already invested $35 million in
    response and recovery effort here, and that number will continue to
    climb. The Small Business Administration, I believe, has already
    approved about $11\1/2\ million in home and business loans. The Corps of
    Engineers is here, and the fact that Martin Lancaster and Bill Coleman
    are both here is very encouraging to me.
        To date, the Department of Transportation has allocated $11 million
    to help repair roads that were damaged by the floods, and today I am
    pleased to announce--I talked to Secretary Pena just before coming
    here--that we will provide another $10 million for that purpose. That
    will give you $21 million to deal with the roads. And FEMA is going to
    give this city another $400,000 to repair the damage along Parkin Street
    to the canal.
        But that, I think, is just the beginning. I think the Federal
    housing assistance to the State, Governor, will run somewhere in the
    neighborhood of $10 million for the people who have had their homes
    damaged. And I'm sure there will be more.
        One of the things that you mentioned that I wanted to emphasize is
    that in 1993, after we dealt with the impacts of the terrible flooding
    in the Middle West, and the Governor was still in Congress then--you
    remember, we changed the law to permit, I think, up to 15 percent of the
    total losses in any given State to be used for the State to develop a
    mitigation plan to avert such things happening again. And we estimate
    that you will probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million
    that you can put into mitigation.
        And so I would urge you to make maximum use of that, to come up with
    whatever plans you can to avert this from happening again. And of
    course, that would be over and above the work that the Corps of
    Engineers has now agreed to do. And I think Congressman Kanjorski
    announced this last night. But I want to emphasize that the Corps has
    now agreed to move forward with a contract that can be done now that
    this preliminary agreement has been made, and we can start work on that
    this year to make sure that the Wyoming Valley will never be subject to
    a flood like that which came in 1972. And I think that's very important.
        And I believe they're prepared to provide some extra protection as
    well. I know--the Governor and I were talking about the other
    communities in this area and in the State that were damaged by the
    flood. I think FEMA has already made available about $2\1/2\ million to
    local governments and, as you need it, there is more available there to
    help the local governments try to deal with the problems that they
    sustained in the flood.
        So the main point I want to make to you is, I am grateful to all of
    you for what you have done, and we will do our part. And the thing that
    I am determined to do is to see that we stay with you until all the work
    is done, until you've returned to normal, until you've got everything
    back the way it ought to be. And we'll stay all the way through.
        I've already said more than I meant to. I'd like to spend some time
    now hearing from the rest of the people around the table if you want to
    tell me how you think we should do that.

    Note: The President spoke at noon in the chapel at King's College. In
    his remarks, he referred to Jim Siracuse, emergency management director,
    Luzerne County; Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania; Mayor Thomas McGroarty
    of Wilkes-Barre; and William Coleman, Deputy Administrator for Federal
    Procurement Policy, Office of Management and Budget.