Hurricane Katrina

HURRICANE KATRINA

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank you.

A few moments ago, Senator TRENT LOTT of Mississippi spoke on the floor of the Senate about the pastor from my State of Illinois who just got into her truck and drove to Mississippi to see what she could do to help. There are people like her all over my State and all over this Nation.

Illinois so far has received 500 Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Another 250 will arrive at the Rockford Airport today. The number could rise into the thousands.

Thirty families so far have asked to enroll their children in Illinois schools, and more are on their way.

America's Second Harvest, based in Chicago, and the American Red Cross, filled a United Airlines flight with 25,000 pounds of critically needed relief supplies and sent it--in just a few days from Chicago to New Orleans.

I got a call while I was traveling the State last week from a Pepsi Cola distributor in Quincy, IL. He said:

Senator, I want to send 33,000 cases of water to Louisiana. How can I do it?

We have been working with them ever since.

Six-hundred Illinois firefighters traveled to Baton Rogue. Personnel from the Scott Air Force base near Belleville, IL, have been busy flying airlift missions to the disaster area.

Mr. President, 328 members of the Illinois National Guard are providing some of the big trucks they desperately need to transport people and material to the areas hard hit by Katrina. Another 500 members of the Illinois National Guard are expected to ship out to the gulf coast by tomorrow. By the end of the week, nearly one-tenth of the entire Illinois National Guard could be serving on the gulf coast.

Mr. President, 400 doctors and nurses from the Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois, and Cook County Hospital are ready to be deployed as soon as they get the call.

What does this say? It says that when we have pain and distress in the American family, we come together. And that is the way it should be.

Twelve years ago, there was a flood on the Mississippi, Illinois and Missouri Rivers. As a Congressman from the flood-affected area, I really felt the pain of the people living in the small communities. I reflected on that for a moment and the heroic efforts made by some to respond to their needs. Then I tried to put it into perspective of what was happening on the gulf coast in Alabama and Mississippi and certainly in the State of Louisiana. What we went through just absolutely pales in comparison.

Thousands of our fellow Americans may have lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of thousands of people in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have been displaced from their homes maybe never ever to return.

Hurricane Katrina may be one of the worst economic disasters in our Nation's history.

Put in perspective, 48 hours after 9/11 we came up with the estimate that we would need $250 billion to deal with the devastation of that terrible act of terrorism; that is about the high level mark for the cost of a disaster. Preliminary estimates now from Hurricane Katrina surpass $100 billion, and some say as high as $150 billion, to give you some idea of the devastation and the challenge that we face.

How do we estimate how many jobs have been lost on the gulf coast? Some say a half million.

The economic aftershocks are being felt across the country. Just ask anybody who is filling up a gas tank anywhere in America.

In Illinois, our farmers, who have had a tough year with the drought and a short corn crop, now worry about getting their products down the Mississippi and down the Illinois to market with the Port of New Orleans damaged.

Let us put it into some perspective for a moment.

President John Kennedy said:

To those whom much is given, much is required.

Sadly, the agenda of the Senate in the past has not reflected what I consider to be the core value and truth of President Kennedy's remarks.

Last week, while the mayor of New Orleans was issuing a desperate SOS for help to rescue tens of thousands of people who were trapped in the city and in danger of dying without food, water, medical care, or shelter, the leader of the Republic National Committee sent out his own SOS. It said: Call your Senators and tell them to vote this week to give a $1 trillion tax break--to the wealthiest people in America.

It is hard to understand how that could be happening in the midst of this national disaster. At a time when thousands are dispossessed, homeless, hungry, and desperate to know what their futures will be, how can we focus on tax breaks and tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America?

Majority leader BILL FRIST did the right thing. He pulled the estate tax issue from the agenda. A trillion-dollar tax break for millionaires should be the last thing on our minds. We have Americans in distress. Let us not worry about making it more comfortable for those who live in the lap of luxury already.

Never in our history have we cut taxes for the wealthy during a war--which we are engaged in now in Iraq and Afghanistan--and never should we cut taxes on those in America who are well enough during a national crisis such as Hurricane Katrina. We need to put first things first.

At a time when the American family is in pain, when our neighbors are homeless in Katrina's wake, when we are losing our children in Iraq, when our hard-working friends can't afford health insurance and gasoline for their cars and the basics for their kids, when the blessings of prosperity reach a few and not the many, Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle must feel the hurt and understand the heart of America.

Americans will always rise to a call for shared sacrifice and unity. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt made a speech. This is what he said.

Not all of us can have the privilege of fighting our enemies in distant parts of the world. Not all of us can have the privilege of working in a munitions factory or a shipyard, or on the farms or in oil fields or mines, producing the weapons or the raw materials that are needed by our Armed Forces.

But there is one front, and one battle, where everyone in the United States--every man, woman, and child--is in action, and will be privileged to remain in action throughout this war. That front is right here at home, in our daily lives, in our daily tasks. .....

FDR said:

Here at home everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure during the war and after the war. ..... This will require, of course, the abandonment not only of luxuries, but of many other creature comforts.

Franklin Roosevelt was appealing to the best in America, a sense of unity and a sense of sacrifice in a time of great national need. Can anyone recall a time recently, other than September 11, when we have felt that same sense of need in this country?

President Roosevelt went on to say:

Every loyal American is aware of his individual responsibility. Whenever I hear anyone saying, ``The American people are complacent--they need to be aroused,'' I feel like asking them to come to Washington to read the mail that floods into the White House and into all departments of this government. The one question that recurs throughout all these thousands of letters and messages is, ``What more can I do to help my country in winning this war?''

Those are the words of Franklin Roosevelt, appealing to a core American value, appealing to the American family to stand together.

After September 11, a new generation of Americans asked the same question: What can we do to help this country win this war on terrorism? Many of them, the best of them, are serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 2,000 members of our military, including 77 from my home State of Illinois, have paid the ultimate price, have given up their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Four Illinoisans died in Iraq during August. More National Guard and Reserve members died in Iraq during the first 10 days in August than in any full month during the entire war. Many thousands more have suffered serious injuries. I have met some of them at Walter Reed Hospital and other veterans facilities. They are making enormous sacrifices.

After September 11, Americans answered the call for shared sacrifice at home, too. What an enormous outpouring of sympathy and generosity, including the blood banks with people standing in line, the charities with people making their contributions, the outpouring of sentiment and hope and prayers for the victims of September 11. Even people living on small fixed incomes in America asked: How can I help? They each gave what they could.

Some of the same units that served in the Persian Gulf, those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, are now helping others right here at home. That is the spirit of America.

This week, as we prepare to mark the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, we see the same spirit on the rise in America. The extraordinary way our country reaches out with its wallets, its hearts, opening its home to the victims of Hurricane Katrina shows us once again that the spirit of shared sacrifice is strong. That spirit must not only guide us in our conversation with America, it should guide us with our agenda in Congress.

We are all in this together, in times of war and in times of national catastrophe. It is not tax cuts for the wealthy that protect America and make us strong. What sees us through hard times has always been our belief in America, our shared commitment to one another, and our willingness to accept our fair share of sacrifice.

We have all learned a lot in the last few weeks. Sadly, many believed our homeland security was up to the challenge and the task. It did not work in many parts of the gulf coast. It certainly did not work in New Orleans. This hurricane, leading to a breach of a levee, has resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives.

Many felt if we faced that kind of catastrophe, whether from a natural disaster or from some terrorist attack involving biological or chemical weapons, we were ready to evacuate innocent people, to move folks out of hospitals so they could be taken care of in other places. But we know now from what happened just a few days ago that we are not prepared. We are not ready. We are not as safe and secure as we should be in this time of danger in the world, danger from terrorist attack, danger from natural disaster.

We need to do more. We need to focus on making America safe. We need to focus on thanking those who are giving so much every minute of every day to help those in need. And we need to focus on our prayers and thoughts directed to the victims of this terrible tragedy.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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