Hurricane Harvey
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has been 1 week since Hurricane Harvey hit the State of Texas, and although the rain has now stopped, the damage continues, as much of the water that has moved through Houston is now moving downstream to rivers and bayous and areas south of Houston. People's lives are still being disrupted, and unfortunately more and more bodies are being found, as the water has receded in places that have been flooded. Eight days ago, Harvey's wrath was still being felt.
Of course, we are still counting the cost, and, as one lady in Houston told my staff, ``Normal is a long way off.'' It is more than just days we are counting, though. As families return to their homes and piece their lives back together, the numbers keep rolling in.
Numbers are how we keep track, and I want to mention a number of numbers that I think will help all of us understand the magnitude of what has occurred and will help us wrap our heads around what this disaster has meant for not only Texas but for the country.
The largest numbers are the toughest--not the toughest to swallow, and I will get to those in a moment, but simply to comprehend. They are the ones that make your jaw drop.
Twenty-seven trillion--that is the number of gallons of rain that Harvey pummeled on Texas and Louisiana.
Then there is 2.7 million--that is how many liters of water have been provided to Texas by FEMA as of last Friday. Don't forget that parts of the city of Beaumont are without drinking water or are subject to a boil notice for 7 more days.
There is another number: 1 million. That is the number of cars reportedly destroyed by the storm--1 million cars.
Forty thousand--that is the number of homes Harvey permanently wrecked. At least that many people are still, even today, in shelters, living off of cots at convention centers, inside government-funded motel rooms, or living with friends and family.
Next come the middle batch of numbers, slightly smaller and more manageable sums. Some of these actually come as a relief. Some of them remind
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us why writer Walker Percy, a native of our neighbor Louisiana, used to say that hurricanes, as terrible and life-altering as they are, sometimes give us hope--because they draw people closer together as neighbor helps neighbor.
Four thousand two hundred--that is the number of pounds of flour employees went through at El Bolillo restaurant in Southeast Houston.
The bakers were trapped inside their kitchen for 2 days during the storm, so what did they do? They did what bakers always do: They baked.
In this case, they baked up pan dulce--traditional Mexican pastries-- for flood victims. Their ovens were on all night for their neighbors.
One young girl on Twitter praised the Bolillo bakers as ``angels.'' They gave people what they needed most, perhaps, during this storm, and that is a sense of normalcy.
Two thousand seven hundred thirty-one--that is the number of cattle, horses, and sheep which various ranchers and helicopter pilots, like Ryan Ashcraft, have saved in places like Brazoria County and which are now inside makeshift stables in fairgrounds and parking lots. Animal rescue has been a crucial and difficult part of the equation in communities affected by the storm. Of course, in the shelters Senator Cruz and I visited, they had to make accommodation for pets because people wouldn't leave their cat or dog in the floods. They wouldn't leave unless they could bring their animal with them. They have had to make some accommodation--and they have--which made it easier for people to leave their flooded homes.
Then there is another number: 200. That is the number of soaking-wet, stranded Houstonians Jim McIngvale and his staff rescued in their delivery trucks. Most of us from Texas, and especially from Houston, know Mr. McIngvale as ``Mattress Mack.'' He is in the furniture business, and he opened up his giant furniture showrooms as shelters.
They provided portable showers and an inventory of brand-new beds and sofas for folks who had nowhere else to sleep.
Getting rest couldn't have been easy, though, not when so many displaced people were still thinking about the storm and its consequences, still feeling the dampness in their clothes and remembering the pounding rain and wondering what they were going to do to get on with their lives.
One hundred thirty-two--that number represents the speed in miles per hour of the most punishing wind gusts recorded in Port Aransas on August 25. It is hard to imagine the power of the wind attacking homes and structures--eight times faster than a charging bull.
In the days ahead, we need to remember just how strong the storm really was. I brought a few charts to help remind us of that and the aftermath.
This is a picture outside of Houston. I visited a synagogue in a place called Meyerland in the Houston area where they have literally been flooded 3 years in a row. This is one of the members of that congregation, and she invited me to come to her home so I could see all the damaged drywall, furniture, and other items on her front lawn which have now been pulled out of her house.
Finally, we come to the last set of numbers, the smallest ones but in many ways the most painful, the hardest to forget, numbers like 45, which is the angle in degrees of bent electric poles I saw in Rockport when I toured the destruction after the storm last week. Other electrical poles lay on the ground. The town smelled of gasoline and even natural gas leaks, which we smelled in the Rockport area. Of course, the ground was littered with broken glass and strewn books and things like that. Boats in the marina had been tossed about and smashed, their sails ripped to shreds, as local residents had mostly fled. Here is another picture of that damage in Rockport, TX.
Harder still, though, is the number 25, which is the years Andrew Pasek lived before he tragically stepped on a live electrical wire in ankle-deep water on August 29. A resident of Houston, Andrew was an animal lover, and he was trying to locate and save his older sister's cat when he stepped on this electrical wire and lost his life.
We, of course, offer our condolences to all of those families who have lost loved ones, including Andrew's, in their time of grief, and we pledge to remember him and all of the flood victims in our prayers.
Sadly, Andrew was joined by 59 others who lost their lives. As I said earlier, that number continues to grow each day as the waters recede and as we find people who did not leave their homes, perhaps because they were elderly and unable to get out, living alone, for example. So we expect that number to, sadly, get even higher.
Six is the number of family members Samuel Saldivar lost when a van he was driving was tossed by a strong current into the bayou. As with Andrew's family, our thoughts and prayers go out to Samuel during what I am sure has been a dark and trying week, one nearly impossible to make sense of.
But for each story of loss, each family that is hurting, there are many other reasons for hope as we embark on what is a long road to recovery.
Consider five--the number of bed-ridden, elderly patients from Cypress Glen Nursing Home who required special boats to get them out, boats with generators that could power their life support assistance.
We are grateful for Good Samaritans like Dan LeBlanc from Port Arthur, Doug Barles, Jr., and Robert Bode for managing this operation, which was no easy task. Here is a picture of those gentleman.
Volunteers with no special expertise in search and rescue, these gentleman saved more than 100 patients.
Finally, the number I will end with is zero. That is the amount of complaining done by a gentleman named Jim Rath who exemplifies the Texas spirit. His house was destroyed in a flood 2 years ago, and he had just finished rebuilding it when Harvey hit and destroyed it again.
Was he shaken by this course of events? Well, sure, he was. But did he complain? No, he did not. Of all his lost possessions, Mr. Rath said, ``The main thing is: This is just stuff.'' Then, like other Texans are doing now, he rolled up his sleeves. With saws and jackhammers, they are already moving forward.
Zero is also the amount of time we have to waste here in Congress.
The Texans I know aren't just sitting around waiting for the government or for government aid, but that doesn't mean we should twiddle our thumbs here in Washington, DC. We have to act. That is why I am working with Senator Cruz and the entire Texas delegation in crafting an aid request that addresses flood relief but without imposing burdensome mandates or regulations. As Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week, this measure needs to be tight and specific. She said:
There should be no larding up or loading it down with extraneous measures. This is an emergency.
But that means we have to act and act with dispatch.
I applaud the House of Representatives for moving quickly today to approve an initial $8 billion downpayment on disaster relief, and I urge my colleagues in this Chamber to follow the House's lead and expedite passage for this first tranche, this downpayment on what will surely be a more expensive list of costs. We are going to continue to work with Governor Abbott and the team back in the State to make sure the Federal, State, and local actors are all on the same page. But right now, let's quickly send Texas a downpayment. Let's show that we are actually serious.
I was gratified by the outpouring of emails and texts--even the Presiding Officer reached out, and I appreciate that--from people expressing their concern about what was happening in Texas. I appreciate that very much. But now we need to demonstrate that those weren't just words and follow them up with concrete action.
As we all process the numbers from the storm, I believe the important one today is zero--the amount of time we have to lose.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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