[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 17 (Monday, April 28, 1997)]
[Pages 569-572]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on Flood Damage in Grand Forks, North 
Dakota

April 22, 1997

    The President. Well, first of all, let me say to all of you that I'm 
honored to be here with the people from our administration. Thank you, 
Mayor Owens and Mayor Stauss, the other mayors that are here. I thank 
Senator Conrad and Senator Dorgan, Senator Daschle, Senator Johnson who 
came in with me, and Senator Wellstone and Senator Grams who met us, and 
Congressman Pomeroy and--and Congressman Peterson who met us here; 
Governor Schafer, Governor Carlson. I also want to thank all the people 
who came with me from my administration: the Secretary of Agriculture, 
Dan Glickman; the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala; 
the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo; the 
Secretary of Transportation, Rodney Slater; Aida Alvarez, our Small 
Business Administration; and Togo West, the Secretary of the Army. I 
want to thank the Air Force, the National Guard, the Red Cross, the 
Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, the Salvation Army, and all the 
people at the State and local government and the community groups that 
have worked so hard on this endeavor.
    Today we saw, obviously, these two communities that have been so 
devastated, but we know that there is a lot of other loss in North and 
South Dakota and Minnesota. We're going to meet with people now, and I'm 
going to get a briefing from people who have, unbelievably, dealt with 
blizzards, floods, and fires, all at the same time. I have never seen 
that before. And when I saw pictures of some of you stacking sandbags in 
a blizzard, I thought that I had bad reception on my television at 
first. It was an amazing thing. I don't recall ever in my life seeing 
anything like this. And I've been very impressed by the courage and the 
faith that all of you have shown in the face of what has been a 
terrible, terrible dilemma.
    I want to say before we start this roundtable discussion that we are 
going to do everything we can to move as quickly as possible to do as 
much as can be done to help. I want to be briefed by everyone here at 
the table. And James Lee Witt has already talked to me quite extensively 
about this over, as you might imagine, a long period of time now. But I 
wanted to say that there are three things I'd like to announce first.
    First of all, before I left the White House this morning, I 
authorized FEMA to provide 100 percent of the direct Federal assistance 
for all of the emergency work undertaken by Federal agencies in the 149 
counties where disasters have been declared. We will do this 
retroactively from the moment that the counties were recognized as 
disaster areas, which I hope will relieve the State and local 
governments from the worry of whether or not they'll be able to actually 
afford to help citizens and the communities through the cleanup. We do 
this only in the most difficult of circumstances. Normally, the 
reimbursement rate is 75 percent. But anyone who has been here and seen 
the destruction, as I have, knows that this is not an ordinary disaster, 
if there is such a thing. The people here are giving 100 percent, and we 
should, too.
    Second, we are dramatically expanding FEMA's public assistance grant 
program. We'll add 18 counties in Minnesota and 53 counties in South 
Dakota today. And these counties also will be eligible for funds for 
repair and restoration of their communities after the waters subside. 
Let me also say that we expect to make additional counties in North 
Dakota and Minnesota eligible for this assistance as soon as we can 
fully assess the damage that they have sustained.
    The third thing I'd like to say is that today I'm asking Congress to 
approve an additional $200 million of contingency emergency funds for 
North and South Dakota and for Minnesota. I've asked that these funds be 
made available both for short-term emergency response activities and for 
long-term efforts to help the region to rebuild in the aftermath of the 
flood. If approved, this action will bring to $488 million the total 
amount of disaster assistance we've requested for the people of these 
States.

[[Page 570]]

    Finally, I'm directing our FEMA Director, James Lee Witt, to lead an 
interagency task force to develop and direct a long-term recovery plan 
for North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota. We know that this is 
going to be a long-term effort.
    And when we were coming in today, one of the things that I was just 
noting based on my now 20-plus years of experience in dealing with 
things like this--although I have never seen a community this inundated 
by flood, this large a community--we have to deal with the long-term 
problems. And you have to know that we can be relied on to be there in 
all these communities over the long run.
    The only other thing I'd like to say, Madam Mayor, to you and the 
other officials--you know this already, but a lot of people are still 
almost in shock, I'm sure, and have not had time to focus on some of the 
things which will make the losses most painful, the things that have 
been lost in these homes, the records of family occasions, the letters 
from World War II, the letters from the kids that go off to college, all 
the things that people will have to come to grips with in the days 
ahead. And I know that $488 million or $4 billion wouldn't make that go 
away. But at least we want you to know that we are going to be there 
over the long run.
    And the rest of America has, I think, looked with great compassion 
and pain, but also enormous admiration at the heroic conduct of the 
people of this community and of all these States in the last several 
days when they've gone through things that most of the rest of us can't 
imagine. We could never imagine facing a flood and a fire and a blizzard 
all at the same time. And we admire you greatly, and we're going to do 
what we can to be there with you over the long haul.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Witt.

[At this point, the roundtable discussion began.]

    The President. First of all, Mayor, and to all of you who've spoken, 
I thank you for what you said and for how you said it and for what 
you've done. And the pain with which you spoke, I think, only showed the 
rest of us that you're speaking for all the people in these communities. 
And I thank you for that.
    I wonder if, Mr. Witt, if you could comment, or any of the people 
that we brought with us can comment on the question of the immediate 
needs--the immediate need for housing, even for basic toilet facilities, 
for these things--these basic immediate needs. How are we going to deal 
with that?

[The roundtable discussion continued.]

    The President. We've got the entire congressional delegation from 
North Dakota and from South Dakota, and they came to see me as one a 
couple of weeks ago. And I really appreciated it. I don't think even 
they were prepared for what's happened since then here, but they did 
come and made me aware of what was going on.
    And of course, we have Senator Wellstone, Senator Grams, and your 
Congressman, Collin Peterson here from Minnesota. And I wonder if any of 
them, or Governor Schafer or Governor Carlson, would like to either make 
a comment or ask a question.
    Senator Dorgan, Senator Conrad, either one of you have anything you 
want to say?

[The roundtable discussion continued.]

    The President. Well, let me just say this. I think one of the things 
that we need your input in, to go back to this sort of ``Marshall plan'' 
characterization that Senator Conrad and Senator Dorgan used and that my 
Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles used yesterday, we need to try to design 
this aid package so that it gives maximum flexibility to people at the 
grassroots level to do what needs to be done in these communities. This 
is an unprecedented thing, and I will work with you on it.
    As I said, my sense is that the rest of the country has been 
profoundly moved by this. And if your colleagues in the Congress, in 
both parties, will really help us with this--we just need to--we need 
your guidance. You've been out here since Thursday; you know a lot more 
about it than we do. We need to try to structure what we're going to do 
in the Congress in the next few days in a way that deals with it.

[[Page 571]]

    I think that's why Senator Daschle mentioned the community 
development block grant program or some other programs that gives the 
maximum flexibility to the people at the community level.
    Governors, would you like to say anything?

[The roundtable discussion continued.]

    The President. After years and years of dealing with things of this 
kind, my instinct is that what Governor Carlson said is right, that what 
Minnesota learned and what we learned in all the Midwestern States that 
were engulfed in the flood of '93 will give us some very valuable 
lessons about what to do in the rebuilding in all the communities 
affected here, with the exception of these two where you've had the 
total destruction of communities of this size. In my experience, we've 
not gone through anything like this. So I do think we're going to have 
to be creative and flexible.
    I just want to make two brief points, but I want to--before I do, we 
have some other mayors here, and I know we can't hear from everybody, 
but Mayor Stauss, would you like to say anything?

[The roundtable discussion continued.]

    The President. Before we break this up, I just want to make two 
points. The first thing I wanted to ask is a question. Is there an 
estimated time for when the water and sewer will be hooked up again? Do 
we even know? Do we have any way of--anyone know?

[A participant responded that it would be at least a month before the 
normal water supply was restored.]

    The President. Well, one of you--I think maybe it was Curt said you 
were worried it might take 3 or 4 weeks before people could be back on 
their homesites.
    Let me say--Mr. Witt said something about the trailers, on-site 
trailers, which we have found work best. As soon as we know how many 
people want to go back there and live under those circumstances and how 
many people--the quicker we can do that inventory, the better because 
even if we have to have these made, which typically we do in numbers 
this large, you can get incredibly rapid turnaround. You can turn one 
around--you can order, make, and deliver up here probably within less 
than 2 weeks. They can make a large number on order at any of these 
sophisticated manufacturing places in 10 days.
    So I think we can do our part of that, but it depends on what kind 
of other arrangements you can make for water and sewer and when you tell 
us. Isn't that about right?

[Director James Lee Witt of the Federal Emergency Management Agency 
responded affirmatively to the President's question.]

    The President. Yes, but we've also got to have the inventory ready 
simultaneously. We could be--we can order these things before the water 
and sewer is back on so that they happen together. That's the point I'm 
trying to make. You can--and that can save people at least a couple of 
weeks. And I know right now, any day, people say, means something to 
them.
    The second point I want to make is to my--basically a request to the 
Members of Congress who are here and for help from the Governors. 
Believe me, everybody in Congress--I think virtually everybody will be 
sympathetic to this request. On the other hand, the thing that bothers 
me that could delay this some, and I don't want to see it happen, is 
sometimes in Congress, when something that is so important, so popular 
like this comes along, other people, for perfectly legitimate reasons, 
think, ``Well I've got something I care about; maybe I can tack that on 
there, too.'' And there may be some other agendas that get caught up in 
this.
    So I would just ask, on a completely bipartisan, or, if we will, 
nonpartisan basis--this is an American issue--if we can get this 
supplemental request through the Congress on its own terms or, at most, 
only with other emergency-related expenditures in other parts of the 
country, so that none of us--and the administration included--we all 
resist whatever temptation we might have to get something else done. I 
think that is the moral and the right thing to do. These people deserve 
help now, and that's the only way to make sure we won't have any 
extraneous debates and won't fool around and waste a lot of time.

[[Page 572]]

    And I will do whatever I can. But we need--and again, believe me, I 
don't know anybody who is going to do this, I've just seen it happen 
over and over and over again where it seems like it's just an 
irresistible temptation when you think some interest you represent can 
ride along on the train that deserves to go out of the station in a 
hurry. We all need to resist that and do what's right by these folks and 
get it done now. And if we can do that, I think that, from what I've 
seen here today, they'll take care of the rest.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:58 p.m. in the Enlisted Club at Grand 
Forks Air Force Base. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Patricia 
Owens of Grand Forks, ND; Mayor Lynn Stauss of East Grand Forks, MN; 
Gov. Edward T. Schafer of North Dakota; and Gov. Arne H. Carlson of 
Minnesota.