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Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNOCK. Madam President, I rise today calling on the U.S. Senate to immediately--immediately--approve the supplemental disaster assistance request sent to us by the President earlier this week so we can get Georgians and Americans all across our country the support they so desperately need following two recent storms: Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Sadly, these storms are becoming more frequent and becoming more destructive. And we will see again and again the need of the Senate to respond with the urgency that this demands.

I was pushing for additional disaster assistance for Georgians reeling from past storms before Hurricane Helene landed in our State; namely, following Hurricane Idalia last year and Debby in August of this year.

My office was on the frontlines of the Federal response to Hurricane Helene in Georgia, and I was proud to work with a bipartisan group with my colleagues, including Senator Tillis and Senator Budd of North Carolina, to kick-start this disaster funding process.

I want to thank the President for listening to the people of our State in expediting this request. I want to thank the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray for acting on this priority today. It is something she and I have talked about over the last several weeks.

Since these storms tore through Georgia and much of the Southeast, we have seen light in darkness as communities come together to help one another, neighbors supporting neighbors.

I was down in Augusta a few weeks ago, and it was tough to see that devastation. But part of that light piercing the darkness could be seen in the eyes and in the effort of Robert Lanier of Lanier's Meat Market. I was driving. We were going down the street. I had my staff do a U- turn. And there was Robert Lanier, local business owner--Lanier's Meat Market--literally providing free food and water to his neighbors. The very food that he sells every day to take care of his family, he was giving it away to his neighbors--a light shining in the darkness.

I saw this in Homerville, Soperton, and Gibson, where my office hosted community resource clinics to connect Georgians to Federal officials and resources, helping some 200 Georgians in the process.

In Quitman and in Valdosta, my team and I hit the road to deliver food, healthcare supplies, and water to our neighbors in need.

I spent time with smalltown mayors all across our State that were desperately in need of a response.

And to date, FEMA has provided over $229 million in individual and household assistance to Georgians in need and continues to operate numerous disaster recovery and other assistance centers across the State.

I am proud of the great work being done, and I applaud the public servants and the community leaders who make it all possible. But in my travels and in my conversations with these smalltown mayors, with Georgians, for folks especially in our rural areas, it is clear that more needs to be done, and that help cannot come soon enough.

In Ray City, I joined President Biden to survey a damaged pecan grove. An estimated one-third of the State's pecan crop was destroyed as well as cotton. Over 100 poultry houses were damaged or destroyed, and 8 million acres of timber in America's No. 1 forestry State were impacted. All told, we are talking about more than $6 billion in total damages to Georgia's agriculture sector.

Too many of our farmers have taken too many hits with these storms over the years, which is why I pushed the President to send to Congress a request for additional funding immediately so we can give a lifeline to our hurting agriculture industry.

At its peak, Helene left more than 1 million Georgians without power, 300 boil water advisories across the State, over 200,000 homes with some level of damage, and countless communities facing a long road to recovery.

Most tragically, 228 individuals perished in Helene's devastation; 34 of them were Georgians, 6 of them were children. And so as we pray with our lips for those we lost, we must pray with our legs to help those still reeling and recovering from this devastation.

While Congress was out of session last month, because I understood the urgency, I called on the Senate to come back to Washington to pass additional disaster assistance funding. Weeks have passed since then, but the urgency remains.

While it may not be in the headlines, Georgians who were at the center of this devastation are living this every single day.

While I am here to remind my colleagues of the moral urgency to act, I know families and farmers back home still recovering. They are the ones who understand the dire circumstances, clearly.

There is one family in Augusta, GA, a married couple with two young elementary school-aged kids, who, following Helene--listen--are still residing in a house deemed 95 percent damaged. It is practically unlivable, their home. But they are still waiting on Federal support to move to either a temporary or a long-term housing solution.

Imagine that, waking up every day in a home that is 95 percent damaged. And as they navigate the stress and the trauma of this turmoil, the father continues showing up to work. He goes to work every day in order to provide for his family and then returns to their damaged home, waiting on us to show up to work and get the job done.

If we expect hard-working Georgians to do their job in the midst of a disaster, they should expect us to do ours. It is reasonable service. It is the least we can do.

The disaster assistance proposal before us would deliver a lifesaver for so many families, providing over $20 billion to help farmers address crop and orchard losses; more than $600 million to help them rehabilitate damaged land; $375 million to support rural communities with housing, power, water, healthcare, and more; and $40 billion for FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund--the primary source of Federal assistance for Georgians impacted by Hurricane Helene.

There is also critical funding to fix our damaged roads and highways, support our small business harmed by the storms, and invest in public water and sewer system upgrades.

The only question is, What are we waiting for? There is no time for games, no time for delay, no time for partisanship, or politics. We must center the human beings, members of our families who are impacted by our policy, and the time to act is now.

We must approve this additional funding with bipartisan and bicameral support. And I will continue to do all I can until we get this done, and every dollar we allocate gets to the taxpayers. After all, this is the taxpayers' money and hard-working families trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. This is the work we must do, and it cannot happen soon enough.

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