Hurricane Ike

Floor Speech

HURRICANE IKE -- (Senate - September 17, 2008)

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the impact of Hurricane Ike, as we all know, devastated part of the United States, including my State of Kentucky. This past Sunday, 70-mile-per-hour winds blew through the State, leaving thousands of people with damaged or destroyed property.

I could give my own personal observation about it. My wife and I were out at lunch Sunday when the storm came through. There were very high winds, as I indicated--70-mile-an-hour winds--which we are certainly not accustomed to in Louisville, KY. We drove home and saw that one way into our house was blocked because a tree in our own yard had fallen across the road. We took another route around to try to get into the back of the house, and another tree had fallen across the road. That was replicated across Louisville, KY. The power in my own house is still out--to personalize it--as it is in a huge number of houses in Louisville and northern Kentucky, which is across from Cincinnati. This had a severe impact on a lot of people. The good news is that the hospitals and major facilities do have power.

As many as 170,000 homes are still without power. And schools in several counties remain closed today as the cleanup continues.

State and local officials are working as hard as they can to survey the destruction and get help to anyone who needs it.

I expect the State will soon ask the Federal Government for disaster assistance, which I will strongly support.

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