Tax Day Flood

Floor Speech

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am honored tonight to stand here in the U.S. House of Representatives to call to the attention of my colleagues, my friends, H.R. 5025, a bill that will bring some relief to much suffering in the Houston area in the State of Texas.

But before I get into the bill itself, I think it appropriate to thank some people for what they have done to help us get to this point.

I thank my colleague who will be speaking in just a moment, the Honorable Gene Green, who serves in the 29th District, which is adjacent to the district that I serve. I want to thank my friend Gene Green because he is the original cosponsor of this legislation. He was there to help shape it, and it means something to know that you have a friend that you can work with to this extent.

I want to thank my friend Congressman John Culberson. He is the first to make this legislation bipartisan. This is not a partisan issue. Flooding is not a partisan issue. The homes that are damaged, the lives that are lost, none of this is partisan. I am grateful to Congressman Culberson for signing onto this bill.

I would like to thank the 60-plus cosponsors of this legislation who have said that they want to see what has been authorized materialized, such that, in Houston, Texas, we cannot only eliminate a lot of flooding--and we will. We can't eliminate all of it, but we can mitigate that which we cannot eliminate.

I thank Chairman McCaul of the Homeland Security Committee. He published the letter for us, the members of the delegation, to sign and send to the President of the United States, asking that Texas have certain areas within the State declared disaster areas because of the horrific flooding that took place on what we call Tax Day.

I thank the leadership for allowing us to have this team on the floor tonight on both sides. The leadership makes these things possible, and I am grateful to all leadership for doing this.

Finally, I want to thank President Barack Obama because he did, Mr. Speaker, declare certain areas in Texas disaster areas so that we might receive the help of FEMA and funds to help people recover and to restore their lives and continue with their lives.

So tonight I will say more about some of these things mentioned, but now I am asking to ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green), my colleague, who is the lead cosponsor of this, to have his commentary.

Because his district has suffered greatly not just this time, but in the past, from these floods. I will not go into it. I will leave all to be said about it to him.

But I think it appropriate that I acknowledge his great work in the Congress of the United States of America not only on this issue, but on many other issues impacting people within his district and across the length and breadth of this great country.

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. I thank the gentleman very much. I greatly appreciate all that he has done to help us, especially coming into my district, and being there with the mayor, if you recall, who was there.

We had a county commissioner in attendance, County Commissioner Gene Locke, Mayor Sylvester Turner, and persons from that neighborhood. This was not your district, but the people were people that the gentleman cared about, and they are grateful, as am I, for the gentleman's coming in and visiting with us.

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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Absolutely. In Houston, Green is a good name if you want to become a member of the political order.

Again, I thank my colleague.

Let me elaborate for just a moment on the letter from the Greater Houston Partnership because a good many people are not aware that this is another way for us to say chamber of commerce in Texas. We have gone beyond a simple chamber of commerce. We call ours a partnership because it is an effort among the many to make sure that commerce excels, but also to make sure that people have great opportunities.

Houston is a city of opportunity, and I want to thank the Greater Houston Partnership for the letter that has been sent to us supporting H.R. 5025.

But now let's be a little bit more specific. I want to thank Mr. Jamey Rootes. He is the chairperson of the Greater Houston Partnership. He and I have been talking, and he has been working with me and with my colleagues to try to make sure that we have an opportunity to get our message out to the masses. He has done what he can to help us with this messaging, a message that includes the position of the Greater Houston Partnership, I must add.

Also, Mr. Bob Harvey, who is the president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. We made a call to them one morning, asking if they could get a letter to us indicating their support, and that afternoon we had the letter in hand, the letter that I hold in my hand currently. And that letter is, without question, a solid indication of support for this project.

The last paragraph of it reads: ``We want to make sure that we do all that we can to help you and your staff as you consider every potential opportunity for Federal support. Please do not hesitate to call.'' And they give names and numbers.

They are committed to doing what they can to not only help with this legislation, but to help people in their recoveries, and to prevent this from happening again.

The Harris County Flood Control District, Mr. Michael Talbott, sent the letter, the executive director. And in his letter, he speaks of how this can benefit the Houston area to the amount of about $2.4 billion.

He goes on to talk about the jobs that can be created--6,220 created if we can get this legislation done, if we can get this money into Houston.

I must add this: this money is money that we will get eventually into Houston. This is not money that we won't ever get. These projects have been authorized. They are already in progress. It is just that we are getting the money in a piecemeal fashion, and we need a wholesale representation of this emolument for Houston, such that we can get on with these projects, such that we can prevent future damages, such that we can save lives. What we cannot eliminate, we can mitigate in terms of damages.

So I am honored that the Corps of Engineers has these projects that they are working on, and I am especially honored that the Harris County Flood Control District has let us know that they are absolutely in support of what we are trying to accomplish with H.R. 5025.

Now, having said all of these things and making it clear that this is money that has to be matched, that this is money that we will eventually acquire, I think it's appropriate for me to say this:

This is about more than money. It is about more than things, inanimate objects. This is about more than homes and personal property, cars, and all of the things that we call creature comforts. It is about more than these things. It is about people. This legislation really is about human beings. It is about human beings who are in a recovery phase right now, many of them recovering from the tax day flood, some still recovering from the Memorial Day flood which took place last Memorial Day. Mr. Speaker, it is about these people, but not only these people, it is about people who lost their lives in this flood.

My colleague mentioned that there were nine--nine persons, that we know of, lost their lives. And wouldn't it be a shame to remember the flood, remember the damages that were imposed upon the homes, and the cars, and the furniture, remember the damages, but not remember the people who lost their lives?

So tonight I want to take just a moment on behalf of my colleague and many others in this House and just recognize, memorialize the lives that were lost in this horrific flood, a tragedy that, quite frankly, could have been mitigated if we had all of these projects to completion.

Let's just remember these persons and not forget them. So with a degree of solemnity, I would like to just call their names and say a little bit about each of the nine.

The first, German Antonio Franco. He was 66 years of age, Mr. Speaker. He was a retired HEB produce manager. HEB is one of our food stores. He also worked as a part-time contract limousine driver. This was a man who had children--three children and four grandchildren. The circumstances of his death are that he died after an encounter with high water, something we will see consistently as I go through this. But he lost his life in Houston, Texas, in a flood.

I would like to mention Ms. Claudia, last name is Melgar. Claudia Melgar. She lost her life, 25 years of age. She was a college student. She died in an encounter with high water.

Now, there are those who would say that you can avoid an encounter with high water. I believe that in many circumstances you can, but in Houston, Texas, we have what are known as flash floods, floods that occur in a flash, and there are many times when you can be caught in a circumstance such that you cannot extricate yourself.

Because of this, the waters will envelop you and you will find yourself in a position such that you cannot even leave the car that you are in because of the way the electronics can malfunction. And if you don't have some device, some tool to break windows, to move yourself through some passageway other than that door, you will find yourself in harm's way and you can lose your life.

This has happened to many people. It happened to Claudia.

I would also like to mention Pedro Rascon Morales, 61 years of age. He was a big rig driver, a father, and a grandfather. He died in the cab of his 18-wheeler while trapped in a flooded roadway in Houston, Texas.

All of these persons are in and around the Houston area. They all lost their lives in water due to flooding with the tax day floods as we call them. These are lives that we can never forget. I think that we should remember the damages that were caused to property and the destruction, but we shouldn't forget the lives that were lost because there are families that are grieving to this day because they lost people that they loved.

These were the daughters and sons of somebody, and we should never forget that they lived and that they lost their lives, some, I might add, in a needless circumstance--this is my opinion--because of our not fulfilling our obligation to fund what has been authorized.

Next, we have Charles Edward Odum, 56 years of age, seventh grade social studies teacher, married, with two children. Circumstances of his death: died after encountering high water.

Then there was Teri White Rodriguez, 41 years of age, a wife and mother of three. Circumstances of death: died in her vehicle after an encounter with high water, an encounter with high water in Houston, Texas.

It was an unfortunate circumstance, and we should not forget that lives were lost.

I know it is going to be easy for many of us to go on with our lives. This will be put behind us. We have a moment when we focus on these things, but life is such that there are so many other things that we encounter that our focus is lost or that we focus on something else. That is important, so I don't begrudge anybody who has to focus on other things. I just believe that I have a duty, an obligation, and a responsibility to make sure that we don't forget these lives that were lost. There will be others, but we don't want to forget these. There have been others, but we won't forget these.

We won't forget Sunita Singh, 49, an electrical engineer, a wife and a mother of two children, drowned in her car after an encounter with high water.

Let's not forget Suresh Kumar Talluri, 49, a husband and father of two young children ages 6 and 8, drowned in his car after he was trapped by high water.

We shouldn't forget and we should commemorate the life of Dharamendra Uppal. This is an unfortunate circumstance wherein we have the age of the person undisclosed, the circumstances of the death undisclosed in the sense that we don't know personal information about this person who lost his life, or her. I am assuming that from the name it was a female, but this person died and was found deceased in his car, a male, deceased in his car which appears to have been submerged. He was a male. The name is important. The identity is not known completely because we don't know the age and we don't have personal information.

Then there is a woman with an undisclosed name, with no personal information available to us at this time who drowned after an encounter with high water.

All of these unfortunate circumstances involved people. I want to make sure tonight that while we will talk about the billions of dollars in damages--and there were billions of dollars in damages, billions of dollars. It is estimated that it is as high as $8 billion in damages when you combine the Memorial Day flood with the tax day flood, as much as $8 billion.

That $8 billion, by the way, is 25 times the $311 million that we might use to take preventive action.

This money will not go to help people get new homes. This money won't go to help people get personal items that have been destroyed. All of this money will go to projects that have been authorized, projects that, if completed, can possibly prevent the loss of future lives and projects that, if they had been completed, may have prevented the loss of some of these lives.

So I take it as my personal responsibility to call this to the attention of this House and to ask my colleagues to please consider H.R. 5025. The President has declared the area that I am speaking of as a disaster area. FEMA is there. This is an opportunity for us to act. We have done it before, and we should do it now.

I want to assure my colleagues that, when there is a disaster of this magnitude, you can count on our good offices being with you to help you through your time of need. We understand that we should be there for people. This is what we have done in the past, whether it was Sandy, hurricanes, or whether it was tornadic activities. Whether it is fires or hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, we want to be there for our people.

This is our country, and a country is more than bricks, buildings, skyscrapers, and military. It is people who live ordinary lives, who expect that they would have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, to go to work and come home safely and not find themselves in harm's way by virtue of waters that are not expected, floodwaters that can come in a flash and take them away.

So, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues who have signed on to this piece of legislation. I want to again thank the President of the United States, the Honorable Barack Obama, for making his desires known by declaring certain areas in Texas a disaster area. I thank the Governor of the State, by the way, Mr. Speaker, because he acted quickly, swiftly, and promptly to make the request of the President.

I have mentioned Mr. McCaul. I thank the gentleman again for his actions in circulating the letter so that all of the members of the Texas delegation could be on it requesting that certain areas in Texas receive this attention from the President.

Finally, I know that these are difficult times for us across the Nation and across the world. There are many things that are happening that are challenging for us. But among these things, let us not forget that there were people who lost their lives in Houston, Texas, and let us not forget that these floods occur with a degree of regularity such that it is predictable that it will happen again.

We can prognosticate now that this will happen again. If it does, I will find myself back here as a reminder that there are things that we could have done, should have done, and hopefully will do to eliminate much of the flooding and mitigate that which we cannot eliminate. I am grateful.

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