Political Quotes

“I want to just mention to you that it is hard to believe that it has been 10 years ago, in the early morning hours of August 29, just a month from today, that Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast as a category 3 hurricane. With sustained winds up to 140 miles an hour and a storm surge over 9 meters high in some places, the impact to the gulf region was very devastating. While the economic cost of the storm is very difficult to measure, some estimates have put the damage over $100 billion. Hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered across the country. Most importantly, no price tag can be assigned to the loss of the nearly 2,000 lives that were lost. In the aftermath of the tragic storm, there were many hearings; there were many inquiries, studies, investigations, reforms, and policy changes that were conducted, and most of those were for good reason. The initial emergency response to Katrina was far less than what should be expected of our Federal, State, and local governments. However, this evening, I do want to thank my colleague for his allowing this, putting together this time. As he said, we are not here to talk about the failures, so much as we are here to talk about the spirit of the people that were affected. It is easy to sit back and to point fingers and to place blame, but this evening, we want to talk about and bring attention to the spirit of the people that were affected, both directly and indirectly by Hurricane Katrina.…”