[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
[September 14, 1996]
[Pages 1567-1569]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Hurricane Fran in Raleigh,
North Carolina
September 14, 1996

    The President. Thank you, Governor. I don't want to say too much 
right now. We mostly just came down to listen and to see what we could 
do to help. But I would like to say, first of all, that like most 
Americans, I've followed the course of the hurricane and the storms and 
the rains. I have followed very closely. I did see the video on the way 
down of the--specifically focusing on your damage along the beach, but I 
also have watched over the last several

[[Page 1568]]

days as the damage took its toll and then this remarkable job of 
cleaning that has been done.
    I want to thank all of you who have worked on this. I frankly was 
amazed when we flew over the damaged area and how much had been done to 
at least prepare the way to rebuild the homes and to get the trees up 
and do the other things that have been done, and I take my hat off to 
you. And we will do whatever we can to help.
    A lot of our administration people have been down here. Secretary 
Riley--I asked Secretary Riley this morning, I said, ``Dick, why are you 
coming with us today?'' And he said, ``Well, I'm a Carolinian,'' he 
said. [Laughter] He said, ``Besides, there were schools damaged; I 
belong down there.'' And I thank you for what you said about James Lee 
Witt. I thought I should send someone down here who did not speak with 
an accent--[laughter]--so that you would--there would be no time lost in 
translation. But I believe that if we can perform as well over the next 
several weeks as the people of North Carolina have performed in the last 
week, we will be able to recover from this.
    I also know, Governor, you told me on the way down there has been an 
enormous amount of loss to the agricultural crops, to the tobacco, the 
corn, perhaps some others, and I'd like to hear about that. We just want 
to know what the full dimensions of the problems are and what we can do 
to help, and we'll do our best.

[At this point, the roundtable discussion began.]

    The President. First of all, I would like to--let me begin by 
thanking all of you who have spoken and those who worked in public 
capacities and the citizens who told their stories. Thank you in 
Wilmington, Mr. Mayor, and the others for joining us by satellite. The 
wonders of modern technology have given us a picture of that house, 
which proves that no matter how modern technology gets, we are not in 
total control, and I thank you all for what you have done.
    What I'd like to do in the time we have available here is just to--
first of all, let me tell you that we talked--the Governor and 
Congresswoman Clayton and I talked on the way down here with Leon 
Panetta and Mr. Witt and others about what we could do before the 
Congress goes home, maybe, to get a little help here for North Carolina 
and for the other States that were damaged not as badly but there was 
still quite a bit of significant damage from Hurricane Fran in some 
other States and whether we could get something done. So we're looking 
at that. What I'd like to do is to have the clearest picture I can when 
I leave here today of what your priorities are.
    Phil Lader, our Small Business Administration director, is here. 
Jim, you told me, I think, 50,000 small businesses have been hurt by 
this hurricane. And I think we've acknowledged everyone else here. North 
Carolinian Martin Lancaster is here from the Defense Department, and 
General Genega, the head of the Corps of Engineers.
    We'd like to know exactly what you need done the most quickly, and 
what priority--what we need to be sensitive to. And we want to do the 
best we can to try to fashion this relief package that's as adequate as 
possible within the limits of the law. We also want to organize our own 
efforts in a way that is most helpful to you.
    We've been dealing with the emergencies in the last week, but Mr. 
Culbreth just said--I mean, I frankly was astonished that you had over 
98 percent of the people hooked up to their power again. I think it's a 
stunning achievement. But now we need to focus on where to go from here 
and how to do the rebuilding. I'm glad to see Commissioner Graham out 
there, and Mr. Campbell, I'm glad to see you.
    I asked on the way in about the farm losses and how we could help to 
deal with that. So I'd just like for anybody here around the table or 
out in the audience--again, there are a couple of public officials I see 
on the television there in Wilmington or at least citizens who haven't 
said anything. Anybody wants to say anything else to me about what you 
feel should be done in what order, I would like to hear it.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. I guess one of the things I would like to point out, 
just parenthetically, on the Federal assistance, most of the Federal 
assistance I think is funds we need to get to you for these big 
categories of things where, as the mayor said, the people will know what 
to do with it. There are some things where we have direct Federal 
appropriations, where we're going to be looking to see that we have done 
everything that we should do--I'll give

[[Page 1569]]

you an example--to fix the Federal-aid roads and the bridges, you know, 
where we ought to be moving that money as quickly as possible. I think 
that--and they've unleashed another $5 million or something today that 
can fix a lot of the bridges. And then there's money we have directly 
from the Department of Labor to help people who have lost their jobs, 
either to hire them as temporary workers or to retrain them, do whatever 
is necessary, and I believe that about $8 million has been allocated for 
that. And so I think that's important, too.
    We want to make sure that we have--that on the laws already on the 
books, the money already appropriated, the things that the Federal 
Government can just go ahead and pay for directly, even though the work 
may be done on contract or by people down here, we're getting that out 
here, too, because I think--the magnitude of the losses here is so great 
that there may be things that we haven't even thought of yet that we 
could be moving on. And we want to just--I think the main thing is just 
to get as much happening as quickly as possible. It's obvious that you 
are all very well organized and will make the most of whatever is given 
to you.
    I'd like to thank the Red Cross and all of the volunteers. I know 
you've had people here from 18 or 20 States coming in. I see some of our 
AmeriCorps volunteers out there; I know they've been working; I thank 
them for doing that.
    If you can think of anything else--let me tell you what we're going 
to do on the budget issue. We talked to Congresswoman Clayton, and we'll 
get in touch with Senator Helms and the others next week--well, the 
first of the week, the day after tomorrow--to see if before the Congress 
recesses for the election recess, we can find an amendment process by 
which we could actually get some relief now so that it's not just a bill 
that everybody says they're for, that we actually produced something for 
you in the next 3 or 4 days. We could do it next week if we got real 
lucky and everybody just pulled together.
    You know, this country has been so afflicted by disasters in the 
last 4 years, just since I've been President, I mean from the 
earthquakes and the floods and the fires in California to the Pacific 
Northwest and the 500-year flood in the Mississippi River Valley to any 
number of things that have happened along the East Coast. My guess is 
that there will be an enormous amount of sympathy for this across the 
country, because all of those people know that people from North 
Carolina and West Virginia and Virginia helped them when they were in 
need, and I think they will respond.

[The discussion continued.]

    The President. Thank you very much, Governor. Let me just say in 
closing, I've been coming to North Carolina for many, many years now, 
long before I ever got into my present line of endeavor. And I've always 
been impressed by the combination of sort of old-fashioned, friendly 
hospitality and creative aggression--[laughter]--in this State. I mean, 
I think it really accounts for a lot of your success. And I will do 
exactly what you ask. That's why I made the point I did about the Labor 
Department funds and the highway bridge funds. We want to be a good 
partner and a good friend and a good neighbor.
    The second thing I'd like to say is that you were very generous in 
complimenting everybody else, but you and I have been friends for nearly 
20 years now, and I can say that if every one of us in public life had 
the level of energy, intelligence, and determination you do, we wouldn't 
have as many problems as we do, and I thank you for your leadership.
    The last thing I want to say is, you told me today North Carolina 
State was getting a new basketball gym, and as somebody who once gave a 
speech in the old one--and it was so hot I destroyed a suit while I was 
doing it--I'm proud they're going to do it, and I wish them well this 
year, and I hope they have a good season.
    Thank you very much. God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 11 a.m. at the State fairgrounds. In his 
remarks, he referred to Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr., of North Carolina; 
Mayor Don Betz of Wilmington; Maj. Gen. Stanley Genega, USA, Director 
and Assistant Commander for Civil Works, Army Corps of Engineers; Carson 
(Doug) Culbreth, energy division director, North Carolina Department of 
Commerce; James Graham, State commissioner of agriculture; and Wayne 
Campbell, State auditor.