National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2017--Conference Report

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. President, about a month and a half ago, I came into this Chamber to talk about the damage that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. It was actually 2 months ago to the day that Hurricane Matthew hit eastern North Carolina, and I don't think that many people, unless you have been down there--even in the State, it is hard to really conceive of the extent of damage that Matthew caused, even for people in my part of the State, the middle part of the State, Charlotte, so I know it is difficult for those who may be in other States and did not see the local news coverage. Matthew took 28 lives.

It displaced tens of thousands of people in the near term, and now thousands of people are still without homes. It damaged businesses and infrastructure. Miles of Interstate 95 were underwater. Bridges have been washed out. We have a lot of damage we have to recover from.

We have one community that was washed away by Hurricane Floyd and was
washed away again just about 17 years later with Hurricane Matthew, neighborhoods completely underwater. I was in Fayetteville. There was a Habitat for Humanity neighborhood that had 90 homes. Six of the houses are uninhabitable now. They were in areas that were not flood plains.

This was a 1,000-year rain event, a 500-year flood event. In other words, this is not likely to happen again in our lifetime, maybe not even in the pages' lifetimes.

It was an incredible event that is going to take a lot of time and effort to recover from and a lot of resources to rebuild. We are still trying to tally the human and economic toll. It is going to take probably decades to fully recover from this disaster, as we are seeing with Floyd, but we will recover because that is what North Carolinians do. That is what Americans do.

To begin the long rebuilding process, though, we need Federal assistance. That is why Gov. Pat McCrory formally requested a disaster assistance package and why we very quickly got a team together--my staff, who led the effort, working with Congressman Price, members of the delegation, Senator Burr--to try to figure out what we need to do to provide assistance to North Carolina so that they can begin their recovery. Over the past weeks, we have worked very closely with the Appropriations Committee.

I want to particularly thank the leadership of the Appropriations Committee. They have done an extraordinary job of working with us, advising us on what we need to do to make our requests clear, to make it more likely that we would be able to get some resources for North Carolina.

I specifically want to thank two of my staff who have worked very hard. They were literally working on the disaster plan after the rains fell and before the rivers started cresting. I want to thank Towers Mingledorff and Kayla Dolan from my office. They did extraordinary work. I am proud of the work they have done on our behalf and on behalf of North Carolinians. At the end of the day, we now have a continuing resolution as a result of their hard work and cooperation with the Appropriations Committee. We have a provision in the continuing resolution to allocate some $300 million to North Carolina for immediate needs to assist in recovery efforts. This is a beginning. We will continue to work with the Federal agencies which that money will be directed to and then ultimately down to the State so that we can find out what additional needs are there.

I think it is extraordinary that 8 weeks to the day, we were able to work together, get the support of the Members of this body, and get the support of the Appropriations Committee to at least begin the process.

We have to help these North Carolinians get back to their normal lives.

We have to put people back in their homes. We have to allow businesses to recover and bring people back in and let them go back to their daily lives and working. We are going to do it.

We also need to help the farmers. There are thousands of acres of land that were affected by the floods. In some cases, the flooding was so extensive that these farms--many of them were already ready for next year's crops. Some of them still have crops in the field, covered by sand and sediment. They will need to be cleared.
In other cases, there are washed-out bridges, and there are ditches and drainage areas that will all have to be cleared out so that we can get the ninth largest agriculture State in the Nation ready to produce crops next year.

I know we will do it. I know we will do it because we have the support of this body, and we are going to be able to start sending that money and that desperately needed support to North Carolina. But in the coming weeks and months, we will also spend time figuring out what more we can do. In the meantime, I want to let everybody in North Carolina know that if they need help, they should contact my office. They can reach me online at tillis.senate.gov. We will do everything we can to help them recover and to get back to their daily lives.

Again, I thank the Members of this body who have supported our efforts to provide this much-needed aid.
I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source